Hickory Dickory Dock.

By Clara Doty Bates

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!