Over the borders, a sin without pardon, <br />Breaking the branches and crawling below, <br />Out through the breach in the wall of the garden, <br />Down by the banks of the river we go. <br /> <br />Here is a mill with the humming of thunder, <br />Here is the weir with the wonder of foam, <br />Here is the sluice with the race running under-- <br />Marvellous places, though handy to home! <br /> <br />Sounds of the village grow stiller and stiller, <br />Stiller the note of the birds on the hill; <br />Dusty and dim are the eyes of the miller, <br />Deaf are his ears with the moil of the mill. <br /> <br />Years may go by, and the wheel in the river <br />Wheel as it wheels for us, children, to-day, <br />Wheel and keep roaring and foaming for ever <br />Long after all of the boys are away. <br /> <br />Home for the Indies and home from the ocean, <br />Heroes and soldiers we all will come home; <br />Still we shall find the old mill wheel in motion, <br />Turning and churning that river to foam. <br /> <br />You with the bean that I gave when we quarrelled, <br />I with your marble of Saturday last, <br />Honoured and old and all gaily apparelled, <br />Here we shall meet and remember the past.<br /><br />Robert Louis Stevenson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/keepsake-mill/
