The Hall Clock
For forty years and five, I’ve
told
The time in houses new and old:
In every corner of the home
My
voice still makes the hour known.
I never grouse when folk abuse,
Or say
they'd rather hear the News
When I am chiming; just in case
you cannot
see my hands and face.
At dead of night, when all’s asleep,
My watch
on darkest hours I keep:
So if you toss and turn, or wake,
Or lie and
wait for dawn to break,
My voice is sure to tell the time -
The hours I
strike and quarters chime.
Upon the wall I hang quite numb
to incidents,
and also dumb -
And yet I speak, as I have said,
Forget to wind me.... I
am dead.
Though the years have tired my springs,
Mechanical wheels and
inner things;
Though time has worn a harsher sound
And slower move my
hands around;
My bells, the milestones of the minutes,
Record the passing
of the infinite.
Gillian M Griffiths