The watch

Twice I check my pocket watch,

And twice to my unthinking eye

The hands in one spot seem to catch;

It’s one... one hour having gone by.

The figure of the standing clock

Laughs at this in the next parlor,

And the little silver bell mock-

Sounds twice ringing like an alarm.

The sundial jeers and scoffs at me

While pointing out with its long digit

The track along the wall its growing

Shadow has just made by inches.

The steeple quite ironically-minded

Tells the true number, and the belfry

Taking up the note just ended

Has an air of mocking me.

Well! the poor little creature is dead.

I put not in yesterday,

Thus far dreamy is my head,

The ruby hole the golden key!

Within its case no more I sight

The fine spring of the balance-wheel

Come and go, to left and right,

Like a butterfly of steel.

That’s just like me! When I bestride

The Hippogriff, in the land of Nod,

My body without soul runs wild,

And goes off where it pleases God!

Eternity keeps at its circle

All around this silent dial,

And time, its ear upon the crystal,

Seeks the heart that stirred inside;

That heart the infant thinks alive,

And whose every lone pulsation

In our breast is followed blithe

With a semblable vibration,

Beats no more, but its big brother

At my side maintains its throb

—That one nothing can put in a pother,

When I was sleeping, has wound up!

Théophile Gautier