Brightly the sun that summer day
Upon the charming scene was shining,
And warm the thrifty village lay,
Amid its silent fields reclining.
The river, like a silver thread,
Wound round the hazy, shimmering hill,
Till, plunging o’er the dam, it fled
In eddies down to Hamlin’s Mill.
Along the pathway, through the grove,
Beneath the shady trees, we hurried.
The birds were twittering above,
While in and out the squirrels scurried.
We took the narrow road which wound
Through clearings that were smoking still;
And soon our merry chat was drowned
Amidst the noise at Hamlin’s Mill.
We stood within the sunlit room
And watched the busy bobbins turning;
Then gathered round a jangling loom,
The flying shuttle’s secret learning.
Across the mossy flume we crept,
Whose leaky sides their burden spill,
And stood beside the pond, where slept
The giant power of Hamlin’s Mill.
Beside the ceaseless loom of fate
We stand and watch what it is weaving.
The warp is spun of love and hate,
The woof of merriment and grieving.
But far beyond earth’s noise and dust,
There rules the one stupendous Will,
The power in which His creatures trust,
As in the mill-pond Hamlin’s Mill.