In the top timbers let the moonlight in,
Half moulding to their vision spars and beams,
The mill’s old ghostly life, and sail-cloth piled
From the use of generations.  A window space
Just from their towery refuge let them look
Over familiar earth now tranced.  And Lake
Saw yet again his roofs and acres loved,
Tenderly, as though interpreters
Of his long care and their good yielding hours
Freshly upon his senses ministered; Zell
Across the valley saw a lone slumbering light,
While from the south the mounting darkness crept,
And the wind gathered, moaning upon the mill,
Filling its frame with a low pulsing breath.

.....

And over love the heavenly figures went
In their unchanging change.  No longer now
The moonlight shafted through the torn roof-timbers,
And star by star crossed the small field of sky,
And in those hours of peace that only comes
With passion mated and of passion born,
Lake knew within him stirring that far beauty
Of an old starry still Helvellyn night. 
And Zell made all the wisdom of her words
Wisdom of life, so simple and unclouded,
Leaving no fume of trouble in the dark,
Ending for ever the brain’s captivity.

.....

They slept.  And still the south wind gathered up,
Gust upon gust to a full swelling tide,
And the great sail-timbers groaned, and blackness fell
Over the mill that trembled as in pain
Of age now nearly with all quarrels done. 
Along the ridges of the downs it swept,
Beating the boughs of ash and elm, a flood
Of storm exulting in deliverance. 
And fury up and down the valleys played
And rose and spilt and sank upon the hills,
And to and fro the thunder bayed, till sudden
The world about the sleeping lovers shook
With sounding doom.  And Zell, waking, cried out,
And he beside her stood, and folded her
A moment as from fear, and kissed her, and they turned
To go, when from the bases of the mill
A shrieking as of life being crushed and torn
Clanged out upon the beating elements,
And the hurt timbers, whipped and wrencht, sent up
A last fierce wail, and for a moment swayed,
Then gave the life up of a hundred years,
And to the earth the mill plunged in defeat.

.....

Sleepers along the hill-top in the night
Stirred as a ruin above the thunder broke,
And slept again.  And dawn upon a world
Of leaves and downs and sheep washed into brightness
Came on that Sussex out of a clear sky,
And on the sea the little ships went on
With sails just filled with a small virgin wind. 
And slowly one by one the village came
To see the old mill that their sires had known,
And sires beyond them, blasted in a world
Where peace was lord as in immortal mood. 
They stood and silence kept them until one
Saw suddenly upon the dawn breeze blown,
Out from a mound of split and twisted timber
A strand of golden hair.  And strong arms worked
Until upon the grass unheeding lay
Those two dear bodies locked in a love that now
Was beyond malice and denial and fear.