Mother Goose for Grownups/The Fearful Finale of the Irascible Mouse
Upon a stairway built of brick
A pleasant-featured clock
From time to time would murmur “Tick”
And vary it with “Tock”:
Although no great intelligence
There lay in either word,
They were not meant to give offence
To anyone who heard.
Within the pantry of the house,
Among some piles of cheese,
There dwelt an irritable mouse,
Extremely hard to please:
His appetite was most immense.
Each day he ate a wedge
Of Stilton cheese. In consequence
His nerves were all on edge.
With ill-concealed impatience he,
Upon his morning walk,
Had heard the clock unceasingly,
Monotonously talk,
Until his rage burst every bound.
He gave a fretful shout:
“Well, sakes alive! It’s time I found
What all this talk’s about.”
With all the admirable skill
That marks the rodent race
The mouse ran up the clock, until
He’d crept behind the face,
And then, with words that no one thought
To use, and scornful squeals,
He cried aloud: “Just what I thought!
Great oaf, you’re full of wheels!”
The timepiece sternly said: “Have done!”
And through the silent house
It struck emphatically one.
(But that one was the mouse!)
To earth the prowling rodent fell,
In terror for his life,
And turned to flee, but, sad to tell,
There stood the farmer’s wife.
She did not faint, she did not quail,
She did not cry out: “Scat!”
She simply took him by the tail
And gave him to the cat,
And, with a stern, triumphant look,
She watched him clawed and cleft,
And with some blotting paper took
Up all that there was left.
The moral: In a farmer’s home
Run down his herds, his flocks,
Run down his crops, run down his loam,
But when it comes to clocks,
Pray leave them ticking every one
In peace upon their shelves:
When running down is to be done
The clocks run down themselves.