Meditações - The Grandfather Clock

The Grandfather 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 on the day that he was born

It was always his treasure and pride

But it stopped, short, never to go again

When the old man died

 

Ninety years without slumbering

Tic toc tic toc

His life's seconds numbering

Tic toc tic toc

It stopped, short, never to go again

When the old man died.

In watching its pendulum swing to and fro

Many hours he had spent when a boy

And through childhood and manhood, the clock seemed to know

And to share both his grief and his joy

 

For it struck 24 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

 

CHORUS

 

My grandfather said that of those he could hire

Not a servant so faithful he'd found,

For it kept perfect time and it had one desire

At the close of each day to be wound

 

At it kept to its place, not a frown upon its face

At its hands never hung by its side

But it stopped, short, never to go again

When the old man died

 

CHORUS

 

It rang an alarm in the still of the night,

An alarm that for years had been dumb

And we knew that his spirit was pluming for 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.

Henry Clay Work