Whose is the clock that strikes the hours,
And strikes them true?
Above my beds of gaudy flowers,
Of mint and rue,
The sound floats like a light that left
A turning glass
To flicker along a wall, more deft
Than hands that pass,
Having laid down the mirror’s round,
To coil soft hair,
Brushed on a summer morning, smooth
To summer air.
Is it the clock we hid away,
Whose busy sound
Startled so loud our dreamy day,
Cocoon-like wound,
And ever overlaid our lives,
Mechanic, clear,
With ticking gossip of their lives
Who first dwelt here?
Deep in the attic does it bide,
Chatting alone,
By the warm rafter’s roughened side,
In monotone;
A heart, a recollection, even,
Of happy days
For those, since it was relegate to heaven,
Gone sadder ways?
Or is it but some neighbor’s clock,
Some neighbor’s, far
Across still fields, whose silver shock
Floats the warm air?
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