It travels with me everywhere And chirrups like a cricket; As if it said with anxious air, "Don't lose your tick-tick-ticket!"
Companion of my loneliness Along my journey westward, It never leaves me comfortless, But has the last and best word.
I would not spoil its lovely face, And so I go behind it, And hold it like a china vase, So careful when I wind it.
A clock is always excellent That has its label on, And proves a fine advertisement For Waterbury, Conn.
Those Yankees--ah! they never shun A chance to make a dime, And counterfeit the very sun In keeping "Standard Time."
Ah, well! the little clock has proved The best of all bonanzas; And thus my happy heart is moved To these effusive stanzas.
Along the avenue I pass Huge piles of wood and stone, And glance at each amorphous mass, Whose cumbrous weight has crushed the grass, With half resentful groan.
Say I: "O labor, to despoil Some lovely forest scene, Or at the granite stratum toil, And desecrate whole roods of soil, Is vandal-like and mean!
"Than ever to disfigure thus Our prairie garden-land, Let me consort with Cerberus, Be chained to crags precipitous, Or seek an alien strand."
But while this pining, pouting Muse The interval ignores, Deft industry, no time to lose, Contrives and carries, hoists and hews, And symmetry restores.
Behold! of rock and pile and board A modern miracle, My neighbor's dwelling, roofed and floored, That rapid grew as Jonah's gourd, And far more beautiful.
The artisan's receding gait Has brushed the chips away, Where innocence shall recreate, Or like the flowers grow, and wait The balminess of May.
An arid spot, where careless feet Have long been wont to roam, Where cattle grazed, as if to eat Were life's delicious, richest treat, Becomes a charming home.
O man primeval! hadst thou known, Ere rude hands scooped thy grave, Of Homestead Act, or Building Loan, Thou wouldst have quite disdained to own A rugged cliff or cave.
And now I see how skill and art May cleave fair nature through, Disintegrate her breathing heart, And to the tissues torn impart A use and beauty new.
And this improvement is, to turn The things which God has given To their best purpose, as we learn To make the place where we sojourn Homelike and more like Heaven.