Once when the grindstone almost jumped its bearing

It looked as if he might be badly thrown

And wounded on his blade. So far from caring,

I laughed inside, and only cranked the faster,

(It ran as if it wasn’t greased but glued);

I’d welcome any moderate disaster

That might be calculated to postpone

What evidently nothing could conclude.

The thing that made me more and more afraid

Was that we’d ground it sharp and hadn’t known,