Grandfather's Clock
(source: "Rise Up Singing", Peter Blood and Annie Patterson, 1992.)
- My grandfather's clock was too large for the shelf,
- So it stood ninety years on the floor.
- It was taller by half than the old man himself,
- Though 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;
- But it stopped, short, never to go again
- When the old man died.
Chorus:
- Ninety years without slumbering, tick, tock, tick, tock,
- His life seconds numbering, tick, tock, tick, tock,
- 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 as a boy;
- And in childhood and manhood the clock seemed to know
- And to share both his grief and his joy.
- For it struck twenty-four when he entered at the door
- With a blooming and beautiful bride.
- But it stopped, short, never to go again
- When the old man died.
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.
- But it stopped, short, never to go again
- When the old man died.
It rang in alarm in the dead of the night,
- An alarm that for years had been dumb.
- And we knew that his spirit was plumbing its flight,
- That 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
- But it stopped, short, never to go again
- When the old man died.