Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Fuess and Stearns, comps. The Little Book of Society Verse. 1922.

By. Alfred Cochrane

The Eight-Day Clock

THE DAYS of Bute and Grafton’s fame,

Of Chatham’s waning prime,

First heard your sounding gong proclaim

Its chronicle of Time;

Old days when Dodd confessed his guilt,

When Goldsmith drave his quill,

And genial gossip Horace built

His house on Strawberry Hill.

Now with a grave unmeaning face

You still repeat the tale,

High-towering in your somber case,

Designed by Chippendale;

Without regret for what is gone,

You bid old customs change,

As year by year you travel on

To scenes and voices strange.

We might have mingled with the crowd

Of courtiers in this hall,

The fans that swayed, the wigs that bowed,

But you have spoiled it all;

We might have lingered in the train

Of nymphs that Reynolds drew,

Or stared spell-bound in Drury Lane

At Garrick—but for you.

We might in Leicester Fields have swelled

The throng of beaux and cits,

Or listened to the concourse held

Among the Kitcat wits;

Have strolled with Selwyn in Pall Mall,

Arrayed in gorgeous silks,

Or in Great George Street raised a yell

For Liberty and Wilkes.

This is the life which you have known,

Which you have ticked away,

In one unmoved unfaltering tone

That ceased not day by day,

While ever round your dial moved

Your hands from span to span,

Through drowsy hours and hours that proved

Big with the fate of man.

A steady tick for fatal creeds,

For youth on folly bent,

A steady tick for worthy deeds,

And moments wisely spent;

No warning note of emphasis,

No whisper of advice,

To ruined rake or flippant miss,

For coquetry or dice.

You might, I think, have hammered out

With meaning doubly clear,

The midnight of a Vauxhall rout

In Evelina’s ear;

Or when the night was almost gone,

You might, the deals between,

Have startled those who looked upon

The cloth when it was green.

But no, in all the vanished years

Down which your heels have run,

Your message borne to heedless ears

Is one and only one—

No wit of men, no power of kings,

Can stem the overthrow

Wrought by this pendulum that swings

Sedately to and fro.