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The Watermill
by Bishop Reginald Heber (1783 - 1826)
 

Listen to the watermill through the live-long day;
How the clicking of its wheel wears the hours away.
Languidly the autumn wind stirs the greenwood leaves;
From the field the reapers sing, binding up their sheaves.
And a proverb haunts my mind as a spell is cast:
The mill cannot grind with the water that is past.
Autumn winds revive no more leaves that once are shed,
And the sickle cannot reap corn once gathered;
And the ruffled stream flows on, tranquil, deep and still;
Never gliding back again to the watermill.
Truly speaks the proverb old, with a meaning vast,
The mill cannot grind with the water that is past.
Take the lesson to thyself, loving heart and true,
Golden years are fleeting by, youth is passing too.
Learn to make the most of life, lose no happy day,
Time will never bring thee back chances swept away.
Leave no tender word unsaid, love while love shall last:
The mill cannot grind with the water that is past.
Work! While yet the daylight shines man of strength and will,
Never does the streamlet glide useless to the mill.
Wait not till tomorrow’s sun beams upon thy way;
All that thou can call thine own lies in thy today.
Power, and intellect and health, may not always last:
The mill cannot grind with the water that is past.
Oh! The wasted hours of life that have drifted by,
Oh! The good that might have been lost without a sigh;
Love that we might once have saved by a single word;
Thoughts conceived but never penned, perishing unheard.
Take the proverb to thy heart, take and hold it fast:
The mill cannot grind with the water that is past.