| |
| HOW slowly creeps the hand of Time | |
| On the old clock’s green-mantled face! | |
| Yea, slowly as those ivies climb, | |
| The hours roll round with patient pace; | |
| The drowsy rooks caw on the tower, | 5 |
| The tame doves hover round and round; | |
| Below, the slow grass hour by hour | |
| Makes green God’s sleeping-ground. | |
| |
| All moves, but nothing here is swift; | |
| The grass grows deep, the green boughs shoot; | 10 |
| From east to west the shadows drift; | |
| The earth feels heavenward underfoot; | |
| The slow stream through the bridge doth stray | |
| With water-lilies on its marge, | |
| And slowly, pil’d with scented hay, | 15 |
| Creeps by the silent barge. | |
| |
| All stirs, but nothing here is loud: | |
| The cushat broods, the cuckoo cries; | |
| Faint, far up, under a white cloud, | |
| The lark trills soft to earth and skies; | 20 |
| And underneath the green graves rest; | |
| And through the place, with slow footfalls, | |
| With snowy cambric on his breast, | |
| The old gray Vicar crawls. | |
| |
| And close at hand, to see him come, | 25 |
| Clustering at the playground gate, | |
| The urchins of the schoolhouse, dumb | |
| And bashful, hang the head and wait; | |
| The little maidens curtsey deep, | |
| The boys their forelocks touch meanwhile, | 30 |
| The Vicar sees them, half asleep, | |
| And smiles a sleepy smile. | |
| |
| Slow as the hand on the clock’s face, | |
| Slow as the white cloud in the sky, | |
| He cometh now with tottering pace | 35 |
| To the old vicarage hard by: | |
| Smother’d it stands in ivy leaves, | |
| Laurels and yews make dark the ground; | |
| The swifts that build beneath the eaves | |
| Wheel in still circles round. | 40 |
| |
| And from the portal, green and dark, | |
| He glances at the church-clock old— | |
| Gray soul! why seek his eyes to mark | |
| The creeping of that finger cold? | |
| He cannot see, but still as stone | 45 |
| He pauses, listening for the chime, | |
| And hears from that green tower intone | |
| The eternal voice of Time. | |
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