A hot, thundery day by a mill-pond: the speaker sits dangling his feet in the cool water, half-lost in the noises around him—the boom of distant thunder, a wagtail’s quick flash, cooing from alder trees, and the chatter of starlings over the sound of the stream. All these sensory details create a drowsy, electric stillness. Then a girl appears, dressed in white, and quietly warns, “Take care.” In the moment, her sudden presence startles him, and he feels a flash of annoyance. Looking back, that irritation seems absurd. When the storm finally breaks and he crouches for shelter, the memory of her already feels softened: she seems completely beautiful and kind. The poem holds that shift perfectly—how a small, fleeting encounter can ripen over time into something gentle and luminous, the specific sounds and heat of the day still vivid decades later.
The Mill-Pond — Summary
THE sun blazed while the thunder yet Added a boom: A wagtail flickered bright over The mill-pond's gloom:
Less than the cooing in the alder Isles of the pool Sounded the thunder through that plunge Of waters cool.
Scared starlings on the aspen tip Past the black mill Outchattered the stream and the next roar Far on the hill.
As my feet dangling teased the foam That slid below A girl came out. "Take care!" she said-- Ages ago.
She startled me, standing quite close Dressed all in white: Ages ago I was angry till She passed from sight.
Then the storm burst, and as I crouched To shelter, how Beautiful and kind, too, she seemed, As she does now!