The Mill – Past And Present

                             I.

I see a sleeping village just beneath a towering hill;

Far up the valley I discern a faintly glimmering rill,

Which here and there is reinforced by streams of less renown,

Till through the narrow village comes a river winding down.

I see the houses glisten in the early morning light,

The gray church-spire far-shining, and the schoolhouse opposite;

The stream, the bridge, the spreading pond, which lies so black and still,

And just below in somber gray, the village cotton mill.

                             II.

I hear the rooster crowing as he proudly greets the morn,

Far down the valley faintly floats a farmer’s breakfast horn;

I hear the mill bell tolling with its slowly clanging knell,

Which seems to stir the village from a perfect slumber spell.

I hear the farmer’s daughters as they throw a sweet good bye,

And hasten to the village with a measure firm and spry;

I see their chums who join them all along their grassy way,

All tripping gaily to the mill – the mill of yesterday.

                                                          III

                                      Our mothers were the mill girls,

                                               And they lightly spun and wove;

                                      And our fathers were the farm lads,

                                               Who won them with their love.

                                       And they were married, bless them,

                                               And we are what they brought;

                                      And the hied them to the homesteads

                                               Which their savings up had brought.

                                      And the mill it still kept turning,

                                               But our mothers, bless their hearts,

                                      Couldn’t let us do the spinning,

                                               So we dabbled I the arts.

                                      And they sent us off to college,

                                               And they scrimped for us until

                                      I fear we scorned the people

                                               Who were slaving at the mill.

                                      But the mill it still kept turning,

                                               Tho’ we answered not the bell;

                                      And ‘twas foreign labor summoned,

                                               And they did it just as well.

                                      And the change was slow but certain,

                                               And ‘twas soon no native born

                                      Who wakened at the tolling

                                               Of the bell at early morn.

                                      But the mill it still kept turning,

                                               But we only heard its call

                                      When we passed it in the summer,

                                               And we glanced, but that was all.

                                      And ‘twas dark and stranger faces

                                               Where our mothers spun and wove;

                                      And the years they wrought such changes

                                               Since our fathers won their love!

                             IV.

I see a city spreading out o’er once a barren plain,

A hundred chimneys stretching toward a blue and hazy main;

I see those brick-capped acres, with a hundred looms in line,

Ten thousand spindles flying, of a new and swift design.

I hear the tread of countless feet that hurry in the morn,–

The bells were not so merciless as is the modern horn –

I see the black smoke curling as it fills the morning air,

And hear a thousand whistles in one grand descendant blare.

                             V.

I hear the mighty throbbings of the mills throughout the land,

Wear hordes of men and women through the weary day must stand.

‘Tis the vastest of industries, and among that toiling throng

I send my deepest sympathy, the while I sing my song.

I hear the mighty engines as they make the spindles fly,

Which have usurped the rivers – that in summer time were dry –

I see the moss-grown ruins of the mills long passed away,

And I hold my breath in wonder at the progress of today.

                  

Feb. 28, 1897