STANDS THE CLOCK....

Visiting Chester recently, I was enchanted by the intricate clock which looks down on this pretty city.



It probably sounds geeky, but I love public clocks. Traditionally a meeting place, their significance is huge. I wonder what human intrigue they have witnessed. I think about the chiming away of the years and the importance of seizing the moment. And of course, I love the poem which has (possibly) the world's most famous line about clocks - the heartbreakingly beautiful poem by Rupert Brooke - the first and last verses of which I have copied here:

The Old Vicarage, Grantchester

(written at the Cafe des Westens, Berlin, May 1912)

Just now the lilac is in bloom,

All before my little room;

And in my flower-beds, I think,

Smile the carnation and the pink;

And down the borders, well I know,

The poppy and the pansy blow . . .

Oh! there the chestnuts, summer through,

Beside the river make for you

A tunnel of green gloom, and sleep

Deeply above; and green and deep

The stream mysterious glides beneath,

Green as a dream and deep as death.

-- Oh, damn! I know it! and I know

How the May fields all golden show,

And when the day is young and sweet,

Gild gloriously the bare feet

That run to bathe . . .

Du lieber Gott!'

Ah God! to see the branches stir

Across the moon at Grantchester!

To smell the thrilling-sweet and rotten

Unforgettable, unforgotten

River-smell, and hear the breeze

Sobbing in the little trees.

Say, do the elm-clumps greatly stand

Still guardians of that holy land?

The chestnuts shade, in reverend dream,

The yet unacademic stream?

Is dawn a secret shy and cold

Anadyomene, silver-gold?

And sunset still a golden sea

From Haslingfield to Madingley?

And after, ere the night is born,

Do hares come out about the corn?

Oh, is the water sweet and cool,

Gentle and brown, above the pool?

And laughs the immortal river still

Under the mill, under the mill?

Say, is there Beauty yet to find?

And Certainty? and Quiet kind?

Deep meadows yet, for to forget

The lies, and truths, and pain? . . . oh! yet

Stands the Church clock at ten to three?

And is there honey still for tea?

Rupert Chawner Brooke (1887-1915)