THE CLOCKS OF GNOSTER-TOWN
It was ever so many years ago,
In the days when few were wise, and so
All thought they were wiser than any, you know,
In the kingdom of Mhundus over the sea,
The town of Gnoster used to be;
And on a day which is known to me
Yunus, a small man, bald and brown,
Came to dwell in this Gnoster-town.
'T was a queer little village, getting full Already when Yunus arrived; quite dull, Or a little stupid, you might say,
For the Now was ruled by the Yesterday,
And highly indecorous it was deemed
To differ from what one's neighbors seemed,
So the average ran rather low,
Respectable though, as majorities go,
And the social tone was safe, but slow.
All over Mhundus time was law ;
'T was the promptest kingdom ever you saw,
The royal rule "Follow the sun;
Do what you do when 't is time 't was done.
Do with your might; seek wisdom, pursue it;
Don't wait for the licensed venders to do it."
So Gnoster, too, went in for time.
THE CLOCKS OF GNOSTER-TOWN 163
In its feeble way, and thought the chime
Of its thousand clocks pealed out so far
That they kept the hour for the furtherest star;
And many a citizen demure
Slept sound and sweet, in the thought secure
That Caph and Phad could scarce go wrong
While Gnoster clocks beat staunch and strong.
A thousand clocks! But for setting them going The village a terrible tax was owing.
Not to mention the cost and care
Of keeping them all in good repair;
For the clock-tinker's trade, all up and down,
Was one of the very best in town.
There was the clock on the great town-hall,
Frowning over its spike-toothed wall.
It made the base for a liberty-pole,
Whose crest meant, Everybody had stole
Somebody's cap, and gilded it so
That the owner never his own could know.
Hugging the dial with bent arm bone
Sat a figure of Justice, asleep in stone;
Her broken sword had been crooked, at best;
In one of her scales was a hornet's nest ;
And the bandage over her stony eyes,
What with the weather, and what with the flies,
A pair of gold spectacles you would think,
With one eye screwed in a pleasant wink.
There was the clock at the factory yard,
Ticking and clicking sharp and hard,
164 THE CLOCKS OF GNOSTER-TOWN
With a dingy little iron face,
And a bell that banged the hours apace.
The dial was flat, the figures were lean
As if half-starved all cheap and mean;
And a timid flower, in a chink forlorn,
The hands had scissored and dropped in scorn.
On an ancient, somewhat ruined building
Was a college clock; no paint or gilding,
Stern and classic, dreary and dread,
And the ivy on it was dead
Some cherubs were sculptured around in places,
But the moss was growing on their faces,
And the dial was propped by an angel which
Had been clipped in the wings to fit its niche.
In the old stone belfry's chinks and loops,
With coo and flutter the soft white troops
Of the doves were just beginning to come,
With a breath of purity and home.
Hundreds such secular ones he saw,
But the great church clocks laid down the law.
Throned on the stone cathedral's tower,
A huge old time-piece thundered the hour.
Its face like a face in a mask appeared.
For above, it scowled, and below, it leered.
The dial figures were shrunken men,
And Peter's keys made the X for ten.
The hour-hand clawed as an invitation
Beckoning every tribe and nation,
But a trick of perspective made you suppose
THE CLOCKS OF GNOSTER-TOWN 165
The finger was laid aside of the nose.
The wheels all creaked and groaned as they went; It would soon run down, that was evident.
Close on the great cathedral's toes
A spick-span little building rose,
With a door like the arch of a Roman nose.
Its Gothic windows were stained so thick
That scant was the light that could through them prick.
Around on the spires were a dozen clocks,
As though they had settled there in flocks
A brood from its neighbor's single tower;
And whenever the old clock struck the hour,
These little gilt ones with all their power
Chimed hurriedly in. They were all so made
That lively Italian tunes they played,
And odd little figures, all arrayed
In patch-work petticoats, trotted out
(Moved by machinery, no doubt),
And bobbed, and trotted in again,
Every time that the hands said when.
In place of Peter's keys for ten
Was a fat St. Timothy, going to take
A little wine for his stomach's sake.
Up a street that was always choked with people
Was a great, thick clock, on a great, thick steeple.
'T was a wooden building, big and bare,
With not much light, but plenty of air,
And a dead-earnest look, as if the man
That made it had understood his plan.
166 THE CLOCKS OF GNOSTER-TOWN
'T was a thumping, whacking clock, that would chase All sensitive birds away from the place,
And it seemed to have struck itself red in the face.
One clock, on a building of colors various,
Had beside it a statue of St. Arius.
The dial-face seemed made of shell,
It shifted its changeable hues so well.
Its figure three had been whittled away,
And it wore a smile which seemed to say
That all was sweet and nothing vile,
And the universe made of sugar and style;
That this hitherto troublesome mortal coil
Could be made quite smooth with honey and oil.
'T was really a little hard to say,
In spite of its air of being au fait,
Exactly what was its time of day;
Its pointers were stretched so far from the dial,
That you gave it up, on the second trial,
For you saw at once it depended rather
Which side you stood, and how near it, whether
The hand and a figure fell together.
But a positive clock, on a new French school,
Seemed to pride itself it was no such fool
To go groping around to follow the sun :
Why, who could prove there was any sun?
So its hands were nailed at half-past one,
And its wheels, all dust, in a crust of rust,
Were bound not to budge till 't was proved they
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