Tick! Tick! Tick!

Tick! Tick! Tick!

Original Text
Cambridge University Library Add. MS. 7617B (among "Scraps of J. F. W. H's Poems")
(occasioned by an "irregular ode to an old Clock", by Lady ---)
"Mine eyes are dim with fruitless tears,
     "My heart is idly stirred:
"For the same sound is in my ear
     "As once in youth I heard" -- (Wordsworth)
Tick i.
1I have a clock, and there it stands
2     Against my study wall;
3The same old dialplate and hands
4     My earliest thoughts Recal.
5That clock was like no vulgar clock,
6     It told no time of day
7When dawn aroused the crowing cock
8     Its noon had passed away.
9It marked no eve, nor matin prime,
10     No hour for woe or weal.
11Who looked to it for dinner time
12     Might go without a meal.
13Yet still it ticked -- nor slow nor fast
14     Its rate was ever found,
15While Sun, Moon, Stars, and planets passed
16     Each on its destined round.
17And yet, with every beat it made
18     With every beat it makes
19A human life away must fade, --
20     A human life awakes.
21Like sand-corns on the shore of time
22     They fall -- nor stop nor stay --
23Till the great debt be paid, and crime
24     And grief be swept away.
Tick ii.
25I have a clock of diff'rent mould.
26     Nor catgut, brass, nor steel
27A place within its frame doth hold,
28     Bob, pendulum, or wheel.
29Where'er I go, by land, by sea
30     From earliest infancy
31At home, abroad, by night, by day
32     It bears me company.
33I wind it not, I set it not
34     I know not how it goes.
35It hath no face, no hands, I wot.
36     No hour, no time it shews.
37Ah! how irregular its beat!
38     Hope, fear, Love, joy, surprize
39A word, a look, a fond conceit
40     To change its Rate suffice.
41Its beats are numbered. More or few
42     I know not, -- would not know:
43Content to stay, while aught to do
44    Remains: -- rejoiced to go.
Collingwood Jan. 23. 1865

Notes

6] told: shewed in an earlier draft. Back to Line
15] Sun, Moon, Stars: Suns and Moons in an earlier draft. Back to Line
16] on: in in an earlier draft. Back to Line
21] Herschel notes:
"Die zu ben Ban den Ewigkeiten
Zwar Sandkorn nur für Sandkorn reicht
Dach von der prosen Schuld der Leiten
Minuten, Tage, Jahre streicht" (Schiller)
sand-corns: sand-grains in an earlier draft. Back to Line
33] The order of this and the next stanza is reversed, as Herschel's note requests. Back to Line
44] Content, if aught remain to do / To stay: in an earlier draft. Back to Line
Publication Start Year
2002
Publication Notes
With thanks to Cambridge University Library for access to this manuscript.
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2002
Rhyme
abab