“I Bought A Long Case Clock” – A Sonnet

A couple of years ago I got thinking about the grandfather clock I had picked up at an auction for not too much money.  It was a beautiful thing; built around 1820, slender and delicate, with the most gentle sound of a bell, like a ghost of time, marking out the hours.  It got me thinking about time and how it holds the universe together, and in that daydream I had the idea for this sonnet.  I hope you like it.

PS: I still don’t think I’ve got the final line right, so am working on it!

I Bought A Long Case Clock

I bought a long case clock, whose motive weight

through wheels, escapement, pendulum and gears

spins time with gravity. Now contemplate

how Time has Weight to mark our passing years;

how gravity’s a mystery whose effects

are seen in Heaven’s Movement and the Tide –

revealed by bending starlight, it directs

unseen: forever present, yet implied;

how Time’s the precondition for the chain

of causes linking future, present, past;

and how this impulse secretly sustains

our World: it was the first, it will be last.

All this my clock provokes: how this machine

the Infinite implies…

…and hands unseen

Copyright (c) 2010 Matthew Wingett in all media