The Old Water-Wheel

Often, on homeward ways, I come To a deserted orchard, old and lone, Unplowed, untrod, with wilding grasses grown Through rows of pear and plum. There, in a never-ceasing round, In the slow stream, by noon, by night, by dawn, An ancient, hidden water-wheel turns on With a sad, reiterant sound. Most eerily it comes and dies, And comes again, when on the horizon's breast The ruby of Antares seems to rest, Fallen from star-fraught skies: A dolent, drear, complaining note Whose all-monotonous cadence haunts the air Like the recurrent moan of a despair Some heart has learned by rote. Heavy, and ill to hear for one Within whose breast, today, tonight, tomorrow, Like the slow wheel, an ancient, darkling sorrow Turns, and is never done.