A folk ballad of love and loss where wheel mill's grind on river banks of time.

(Folk Ballad)

There's a wheel-mill grinding
By the river banks
Listen to the gearshifts moan.

I lost my baby
Where the rapid rivers roll
I felt I almost died.

You can still hear the moans
Through the clouds of tears
Where the whippoorwhill sighs.

I hear the wheel-mill grinding
I toss a wreath of roses and carnations
And wish my baby good-bye.

Beyond the rolling rapids
Into calming seas
Mist of a waterfall rises.

Off the cliffs  
Where weeping willows hang
They laid her to rest that day.

There's tingle of a mandolin
A pick on the strings
They take me back to foothill valley dreams.

We'd sit on the river bank
Hear the mill wheel grind
And I sang lullabies to her.   

Into the canyon, down the gravel roads
Where switch backs serpentine
I think about my love swept away in the flood.

But the old mill still remains
In a corner of my mind
Its mill wheel moans and grinds.

I should smash the thing to pieces
Then send it where the river rolls.

I toss a wreath into the river like a life-preserver
She was my lady, I was her carpenter.

My love now rest in peace.