Tick-Tack! tick-tack!
This way, that way, forward, back,
Swings the pendulum to and fro,
Always regular, always slow.
Grave and solemn on the wall,--
Hear it whisper! hear it call!
Little Ginx knows naught of Time,
But has heard the mystic rhyme,--
"Hickory, dickory, dock!
The mouse ran up the clock!"
Tick-tack! tick-tack!
White old face with figures black!
So when dismal, stormy days
Keep him from his out-door plays,
Most that he cares for is to sit
Watching, always watching it.
And when the hour strikes he thinks,--
(A dear, wise head has the little Ginx!)
"The clock strikes one,
The mice ran down!"
Tick-tack! tick-tack!
This way, that way, forward, back!
Though so measured and precise,
Ginx believes it full of mice.
A mouse runs up at every tick,
But when the stroke comes, scampering quick,
Mice run down again; so they go,
Up and down, and to and fro!
Hickory, dickory, dock,
Full of mice is the clock!