I have always harboured a somewhat Quixotic captivation for windmills, and this following poem was inspired by the very eyecatching cover of a 1970s record album (pictured above) that featured a spectacular, multicoloured image of a windmill created by time-lapse photography, in which its arms seemed to be turning not merely through the air but also through space and even through time itself.
THE WINDMILL
Like an astral wheel of Heaven
Sweeping silently through Space,
Never ceasing, never easing
In its convoluted pace,
Like an outward-coiling spiral
As its spool spins ever on
Through the webs of Space forever
Till its silhouette has gone,
Past the stars all draped in wonder
As its whirling arms sweep down
Through the solitudes of darkness
In the evening’s velvet gown.
Still its shadow keeps on turning
Past the zenith of the skies,
For the windmill’s winding pivot
Is where Time most surely lies,
E’er gyrating on its axis
Like a pendulum in Space,
As through depthless pools and chasms
Its unwinding fingers trace –
Like a clock revolving slowly,
Lacking rhythm, lacking rhyme,
Just rotating through the heavens
As the centre-stone of Time.
THE WINDMILL
Like an astral wheel of Heaven
Sweeping silently through Space,
Never ceasing, never easing
In its convoluted pace,
Like an outward-coiling spiral
As its spool spins ever on
Through the webs of Space forever
Till its silhouette has gone,
Past the stars all draped in wonder
As its whirling arms sweep down
Through the solitudes of darkness
In the evening’s velvet gown.
Still its shadow keeps on turning
Past the zenith of the skies,
For the windmill’s winding pivot
Is where Time most surely lies,
E’er gyrating on its axis
Like a pendulum in Space,
As through depthless pools and chasms
Its unwinding fingers trace –
Like a clock revolving slowly,
Lacking rhythm, lacking rhyme,
Just rotating through the heavens
As the centre-stone of Time.
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