Classic Poem

If your clock's going at all, it must be slow.
Surely it's stopped?
It stopped a week ago.

A week ago — and you have let it stand?

I hadn't the heart to wind it up. No hand
But Ben's has turned the key, since he himself
Put the clock there upon the mantelshelf
The day that we came home for the first time
To set up house together; and its chime
Had never failed to sound an hour since then,
Unless he had it down to clean; for Ben
Was handy and could always overhaul
A clock, though it was not his trade at all,
As well as any watchmaker. His heart
Doted on wheels: he'd handle every part
So daintily that you would never guess
His job was hewing coal. I must confess
Wheels always daunted me; but Ben's brain went
By clockwork, and his happiest hours were spent
Sorting old clocks and trying to make them go.
And that one's never been a second slow
In all these years, or half a second fast,
Or failed to strike ... until Ben breathed his last
On Monday morn before the stroke of three ...
Though all the town's clocks hammered presently
As if they struck my heart. Ben always wound
That clock each Sunday, but when the last came round
He'd been in bed a week, and his poor mind
Was wandering — though his fingers tried to wind
Some ghostly clock that troubled him all night —
And when I stole downstairs and struck a light
I missed the tick; and with a still white face
Ben's clock was standing silent in its place,
With motionless hands upon the stroke of three.
Its heart had stopped when Ben's stopped. As for me,
I'll never wind it up again: I know,
Even if I cared, no touch could make it go
But Ben's; and those still hands will always keep
My heart in mind ...
Nay, Martha, you need sleep .
You mustn't brood like this. Try to forget.
Come, let me wind it up for you and set
The old clock going. Only think how Ben
Would hate to have it standing!
Wind it, then.
Ben hated a stopped clock; and now he's gone
It seems I've got to keep things going on.