The Old Water-Wheel

by Clark Ashton Smith


	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.