The Atlantic Monthly/Volume 17/Number 99/Wind the Clock

by Hiram Rich

 

WIND THE CLOCK.

Warden, wind the clock again;
Mighty years are going on,
Through the shadow and the dream,
And the happy-hearted dawn.
⁠Wind again, wind again,—
Fifty hundred years are gone.

Through the harvest and the need,
Wealthy June and dewy May,
Grew the year from the old,
Grows to-morrow from to-day.
⁠Wind again, wind again,—
Who can keep the years at bay?

Four-and-twenty conjurers
Lie in wait on land and sea,
Plucking down the startled ship,
Bud-embroidering the tree.
⁠Wind again, wind again,—
We have neither ship nor tree.

Four-and-twenty kings to come
Up the never-vacant stair,—
Four-and-twenty dead go down;
Follow, sacred song and prayer.
Wind again, wind again,—
Warden, why delaying there?

To his interrupted dream
Comes the long-entreated day.
What are lesser words to him?
Sweet pursuing voices say,—
⁠"Warden, wind, wind again,
Up the ever-golden way."

Other hands will wind the clock
While the frequent years go on,
Never noting need or name
Nor the rapture of the dawn.
⁠Wind again, wind again,
Ere the given year be gone.