She had her simple nest in a safe and cunning place,
Away, down in the quiet of the deep, old-fashioned case,
A little crevice nibbled out led forth into the world,
And overhead, on busy wheels, the hours and minutes whirled.
High up in mystic glooms of space was awful scenery
Of wires, and weights, and springs, and all great Time's machinery;
But she had nought to do with these; a blessed little mouse,
Whose only care beneath the sun was just to keep her house.
For this was all she knew, or could; without her just the same
The earth's great centre drew the weight; the pendulum went and came;
And days were born, and grew and died; and stroke by stroke were told
The hours by which the world and men are ever growing old.
It suddently occured to her - it struck her all at once -
That living among things of power, herself had been a dunce.
"Somebody winds theclock!" she cried. "Somebody comes
and brings
An iron finger that feels through and fumbles at the springs;
"And then it happens; then the buzz is stirred afar and near,
And the hour sounds, and everywhere the great world stops to hear.
I don't think, after all, it seems so hard a thing to do.
I know the way - I might run up and make folks listen too."
She sprang upon the leaden weight; but not the merest whit
Did all her added gravity avail to hurry it.
She clambered up the steady cord; it wavered not a hair.
She got among the earnest wheels; they knew not she was there.
She sat beside the silent bell; the patient hammer lay
Waiting an unseen bidding for the word that it should say.
Only a solemn whisper thrilled the chambers of the clock,
And the mouse listened: "Hiccory! hic - diccory! dic - dock!"
Something was coming. She had hit the ripeness of the time;
No tiny second was outreached by that exultant climb;
In no wise did the planet turn the faster to the sun;
She only met the instant, but the great clock sounded - "One!"