Poem for Wednesday and Carkeek Engineers

Beaver Brook 

By James Russell Lowell 

Hushed with broad sunlight lies the hill,

  And, minuting the long day's loss,

The cedar's shadow, slow and still,

  Creeps o'er its dial of gray moss.

Warm noon brims full the valley's cup,

  The aspen's leaves are scarce astir;

Only the little mill sends up

  Its busy, never-ceasing burr.

Climbing the loose-piled wall that hems

  The road along the mill-pond's brink,

From 'neath the arching barberry-stems,

  My footstep scares the shy chewink.

Beneath a bony buttonwood

  The mill's red door lets forth the din;

The whitened miller, dust-imbued,

  Flits past the square of dark within.

No mountain torrent's strength is here;

  Sweet Beaver, child of forest still,

Heaps its small pitcher to the ear,

  And gently waits the miller's will.

Swift slips Undine along the race

  Unheard, and then, with flashing bound,

Floods the dull wheel with light and grace,

  And, laughing, hunts the loath drudge round.

The miller dreams not at what cost

  The quivering millstones hum and whirl,

Nor how for every turn are tost

  Armfuls of diamond and of pearl.

But Summer cleared my happier eyes

  With drops of some celestial juice,

To see how Beauty underlies

  Forevermore each form of use.

And more; methought I saw that flood,

  Which now so dull and darkling steals,

Thick, here and there, with human blood,

  To turn the world's laborious wheels.

No more than doth the miller there,

  Shut in our several cells, do we

Know with what waste of beauty rare

  Moves every day's machinery.

Surely the wiser time shall come

  When this fine overplus of might,

No longer sullen, slow, and dumb,

  Shall leap to music and to light.

In that new childhood of the Earth

  Life of itself shall dance and play,

Fresh blood in Time's shrunk veins make mirth,

  And labor meet delight halfway.

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It was a little cooler on Wednesday than Tuesday, but still a pretty day -- overcast but no rain. I chatted with all four of my good high school friends in the morning for a couple of hours, ate lunch, did some computer work, and watched the first three episodes of She-Hulk with Kristen -- I think I enjoyed it even more the second time. 

We walked to the park in the late afternoon, where it was windy enough that the geese and eagles were visibly annoyed and the crows were very loud. Then we came home for dinner, watched this week's The Masked Singer (I didn't guess any better than the judges), and now House (the one on the plane). Some projects by the beavers at Carkeek Park: