Read "The Precarious Mill" by Robert Louis Stevenson online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Alone above the stream it stands, / Above the iron hill, / The topsy-turvy, tumble-down, / Yet habitable mill.
Still as the ringing saws advance / To slice the humming deal, / All day the pallid miller hears / The thunder of the wheel.
He hears the river plunge and roar / As roars the angry mob; / He feels the solid building quake, / The trusty timbers throb.
All night beside the fire he cowers: / He hears the rafters jar: / O why is he not in a proper house / As decent people are!
The floors are all aslant, he sees, / The doors are all a-jam; / And from the hook above his head / All crooked swings the ham.
"Alas," he cries and shakes his head, / "I see by every sign, / There soon will be the deuce to pay, / With this estate of mine. "