My Grandfather's Clock

My grandfather's clock was too big for the shelf, so it stood ninety years on the floor.

 

It was taller by half, than the old man himself, though it weighed not a pennyweight more.

 

It was bought on the morn of the day that he was born & was always his treasure and pride

 

But it stopped - short - never to go again, When the old man died.

Chorus:

Ninety years without slumbering; Tick-tock, tick tock

 

His life seconds numbering; Tick -tock, Tick-tock

 

But it stopped - short - never to go again, When the old man died.

 

In watching its pendulum swing to and fro, many hours had he spent as a boy.

And in childhood & manhood the clock seemed to know & to share both his grief & his joy.

For it struck twenty-four when he entered at the door with a blooming & beautiful bride;

But it stopped - short - never to go again, When the old man died. (Chorus)

 

My grandfather said that of those he could hire, not a servant so faithful he found;

For it wasted no time and had but one desire, at the end of each week to be wound.

And it kept in its place, not a frown upon its face, and its' hands never hung by its side;

But it stopped - short - never to go again, when the old man died. (Chorus)

 

It rang an alarm in the dead of the night, an alarm that for years had been dumb;

And we knew that his spirit was pluming its flight, that his hour of departure had come.

Still the clock kept the time, with a soft & muffled chime, as we quietly stood by his side

But it stopped - short - never to go again When the old man died. (Chorus)

 

 

 

 

"My Grandfather's Clock" was written in 1876 by Henry Clay Work. Most accounts give the origin of the song

as a wayfarers' inn in Piercebridge on the border of Yorkshire and County Durham called the George Hotel.

The hotel was owned and operated by two brothers named Jenkins, and in the lobby was an upright long-case

clock. The clock kept perfect time until one of the brothers died, after which it lost time at an increasing rate,

despite the best efforts of the hotel staff and local clockmakers to repair it. When the other brother died, the

clock stopped, never to go again. It is said that in 1875 Henry Clay Work visited the hotel and based "My

Grandfather's Clock" on the stories he heard there. Edited from www.wikipedia.org