My Grandfather's Clock

My grandfather's clock was too tall for the shelf, so it stood ninety years on the floor.
It was taller by half than the old man himself, but it weighed not a pennyweight more.
It was bought on the morn of the day that he was born, and was always his treasure
and pride.

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But it stopped, short, never to go again when the old man died.
Ninety years without slumbering, tick tock, tick tock.
Life seconds numbering, tick tock, tick tock.
But it stopped, short, never to go again when the old man died.



In watching its pendulum swing to and fro, many hours had he spent while a boy.
And in childhood and manhood, the clock seemed to know, and it shared in his grief and his joy.
And it struck twenty four as he opened up the door, with a blooming and beautiful bride.

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My grandfather said that of those he could hire, not a servant so faithful he found.
For it wasted no time and had but one desire, at the close of each week to be wound.
And it kept in its place, not a frown upon its face, and its hands never hung by its side;

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It rang an alarm in the dead of the night, an alarm that for years had been dumb.
And we knew that his spirit was pluming its flight, and his hour of departure had come.
Still the clock kept the time, with a soft and muffled chime, as we silently stood by his side;

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