Birchbrook Mill

"A noteless stream, the Birchbrook runs     Beneath its leaning trees;     That low, soft ripple is its own,     That dull roar is the sea's.     Of human signs it sees alone     The distant church spire's tip,     And, ghost-like, on a blank of gray,     The white sail of a ship.     No more a toiler at the wheel,     It wanders at its will;     Nor dam nor pond is left to tell     Where once was Birchbrook mill.     The timbers of that mill have fed     Long since a farmer's fires;     His doorsteps are the stones that ground     The harvest of his sires.     Man trespassed here; but Nature lost     No right of her domain;     She waited, and she brought the old     Wild beauty back again.     By day the sunlight through the leaves     Falls on its moist, green sod,     And wakes the violet bloom of spring     And autumn's golden-rod.     Its birches whisper to the wind,     The swallow dips her wings     In the cool spray, and on its banks     The gray song-sparrow sings.     But from it, when the dark night falls,     The school-girl shrinks with dread;     The farmer, home-bound from his fields,     Goes by with quickened tread.     They dare not pause to hear the grind     Of shadowy stone on stone;     The plashing of a water-wheel     Where wheel there now is none.     Has not a cry of pain been heard     Above the clattering mill?     The pawing of an unseen horse,     Who waits his mistress still?     Yet never to the listener's eye     Has sight confirmed the sound;     A wavering birch line marks alone     The vacant pasture ground.     No ghostly arms fling up to heaven     The agony of prayer;     No spectral steed impatient shakes     His white mane on the air.     The meaning of that common dread     No tongue has fitly told;     The secret of the dark surmise     The brook and birches hold.     What nameless horror of the past     Broods here forevermore?     What ghost his unforgiven sin     Is grinding o'er and o'er?     Does, then, immortal memory play     The actor's tragic part,     Rehearsals of a mortal life     And unveiled human heart?     God's pity spare a guilty soul     That drama of its ill,     And let the scenic curtain fall     On Birchbrook's haunted mil