GRANDFATHER CLOCK

What is the message of Grandfather's clock?

What does the solemn tick-tock say?

What are the mysteries he could unlock,

As the pendulum swings away?

What would he tell of bygone years?

How would he record the time?

How many hours of joy or tears?

How many of each are mine?

How many hours were rightly used?

How many wasted in vain?

How many hours were abused?

And how many spent in pain?

And how many minutes fell to haste?

In how many frivolous ways?

How many hours can a man waste?

For a total of how many days?

How many hours are in a lifetime?

And how many can we shirk?

How many hours are strife time?

And how many hours to work?

How many hours to laugh and be gay?

How many hours devoted to pain?

How many hours to work and to play?

How many hours to cry and complain?

How many hours to see my neighbor?

How many hours to call him a friend?

How much time to love's total labor?

I hope it will never end.

How much time to ease all hate?

How much time to end all war?

How much time...or is it too late?

Does Grandfather Clock tick no more?

No. The clock beats on forever strong,

Like the pulse of all humankind.

And seems to know we can right the wrong,

If we apply the human mind.

I cannot know the time allotted man.

Nor the duration of Mother Earth.

But we've used about all the time we can

To prove our human worth.

Make each tick a positive voice,

Each tock a commitment to plan.

Let us each declare, by choice,

For the brotherhood of man.