by
Clara Doty Bates
Tick-Tack! tick-tack!
This way, that way, forward, back,
Swings the pendulum to and fro,
Always regular, always slow.
Grave and solemn on the wall,—
Hear it whisper! hear it call!
Little Ginx knows naught of Time,
But has heard the mystic rhyme,—
"Hickory, dickory, dock!
The mouse ran up the clock!"
Tick-tack! tick-tack!
White old face with figures black!
So when dismal, stormy days
Keep him from his out-door plays,
Most that he cares for is to sit
Watching, always watching it.
And when the hour strikes he thinks,—
(A dear, wise head has the little Ginx!)
"The clock strikes one,
The mice ran down!"
Tick-tack! tick-tack!
This way, that way, forward, back!
Though so measured and precise,
Ginx believes it full of mice.
A mouse runs up at every tick,
But when the stroke comes, scampering quick,
Mice run down again; so they go,
Up and down, and to and fro!
Hickory, dickory, dock,
Full of mice is the clock!