- When health danc’d frolic in her youthful veins,
- And vacant gambols wing’d the laughing hours;
- The muse hath seen on Annan’s1 pastoral hills,
- Of theft and slaughter erst the fell retreat,
- But now the shepherd’s best-beloved walk: [155]
- Hath seen the shepherd, with his sylvan pipe,
- Lead on his flock o’er crags, thro’ bogs, and streams,
- A tedious journey; yet not weary they,
- Drawn by the enchantment of his artless song.
- What cannot musick?—When brown Ceres asks [160]
- The reapers sickle; what like magic sound,
- Puff’d from sonorous bellows2 by the squeeze
- Of tuneful artist, can the rage disarm
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Of the swart dog-star,3 and make harvest light?
- AND now thy mills dance eager in the gale; [165]
- Feed well their eagerness: but O beware;
- Nor trust, between the steel-cas’d cylinders,4
- The hand incautious: off the member snapt5
- Thou’lt ever rue; sad spectacle of woe!
VER. 168. Off the member snapt] This accident will sometimes happen, especially in the night: and the unfortunate wretch must fall a victim to his imprudence or sleepiness, if a hatchet do not immediately strike off the entangled member; or the mill be not instantly put out of the wind.6
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The Annan is a river in Dumfries and Galloway, a unitary council area in southern Scotland near the border with England. During the 1332 Battle of Annan at the outset of the Second War of Scottish Independence (1332-1357), Sir Archibald Douglas attacked Edward Balliol and his army at Annan. Escaping just before being captured, Balliol is said to have fled naked to England. ↩︎
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Bagpipes. ↩︎
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The dog star is another name for Sirius, brightest star in the constellation Canis Major. Sirius rises in conjunction with the sun from July 3 to August 11, which are known as the “dog days” of summer. ↩︎
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Grinders in sugar mills tended to be vertical cylinders that crushed cane stalks as they were turned. ↩︎
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Milling cane was a dangerous activity, and it was not uncommon for enslaved millers to catch body parts between the rollers. Whether mills were powered by wind, water, or muscle, it was unlikely that the rollers could be stopped instantaneously. Instead, Grainger encourages planters to supply their mills with axes so that injured limbs could be amputated without delay. ↩︎
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To put a windmill “out of the wind” is to stop the mill by turning the sails so that they no longer catch the wind. ↩︎