"The Old Mill" by Abigail F. Halsey

"The Old Mill"

On the hill stood the mill a watch tower of old,

In the door stood the miller all dusty and bold,

Up the hill came the farmers with grist to be ground

As the wings of the mill turned so merrily round.

Oh, life had a flavor in days long ago,

A tang and a savor we never shall know.

All the news of the village was ground into flour,

The wind and the weather, the tide and the hour,

The crops and the crews and the favoring breeze,

The births and the deaths the ships on the seas.

A tang and a savor we never shall know.

There was plenty of time and plenty of work,

And “plenty” to do it and no one to shirk,

Then no one was rich and no one was poor,

Religion was real and hell-fire was sure,

Oh, talk had a flavor in days long ago,

A tang and a savor we never shall know.

The news from New York when it came once a week

Was turned with the cud to the sou’ sou’ west cheek,

But the sight of a whale from the top of the mill

Sent a blast that would waken the dead down the hill,

When the Whale Rally sounded at night or at morn

The call was a rival of Gabriel’s horn.

Alas for the darkness that shrouded the mill

In the strange march of “Progress” it moved with the hill,

Alone in its exile and shorn of its wings,

The old mill sits brooding on far away things—

On life and its flavor in days long ago,

Its tang and its savor we never shall know.

Let us bring back the mill while the old beams are strong,

Let us give back its wings for the days that are gone,

That our sons may remember the good old days of old

When millers were seamen and semen were bold,

To give life a flavor of days long ago

Whose tang and whose savor we never shall know.

ABIGAIL F. HALSEY

Long Island, N.Y. Thursday, March 14^th, 1929