The Old Windmill

Battered windmill, old and gray,
Swinging there athwart the sky,
Sport of every idle breeze
That may chance to wander by.
Blow they fair or blow they foul,
Still you wag your dingy cowl
Through the livelong night and day,
Weather-beaten, old and gray.
Is that endless monotone—
Half a shriek and half a groan—
That in dreary cadence drones
From your old rheumatic bones,
Echo of some sylvan tune,
Or forgotten forest rune
From the aisles of long ago,
Calling, calling, soft and low
Through the banished years that creep
Back to some old forest dim,
Where the woodland zephyrs sweep
Dancing leaf and swaying limb?
As the lazy breezes blow
All your gaunt arms to and fro,
Swinging ever round and round,
To that weird, unearthly sound,
Do you ever wish that some
Wandering Don Quixote of wind
With its stormy lance might come—
End that weary, ceaseless grind?
Life is like a windmill gray,
Swinging ’twixt the earth and sky;
Sport of every passing breeze
That may chance to wander by.
Still we grind with smile or scowl,
Blow they fair or blow they foul;
Sure that we shall be some day,
Weather-beaten, old and gray.