A Clock Stopped -- Not The Mantel’s
Emily Dickinson
Track 157 on Third Series
A Clock Stopped -- Not The Mantel’s Lyrics
A clock stopped -- not the mantel's
Geneva's farthest skill
Can't put the puppet bowing
That just now dangled still.
An awe came on the trinket!
The figures hunched with pain,
Then quivered out of decimals
Into degreeless noon.
It will not stir for doctors,
This pendulum of snow;
The shopman importunes it,
While cool, concernless No
Nods from the gilded pointers,
Nods from seconds slim,
Decades of arrogance between
The dial life and him.
Geneva's farthest skill
Can't put the puppet bowing
That just now dangled still.
An awe came on the trinket!
The figures hunched with pain,
Then quivered out of decimals
Into degreeless noon.
It will not stir for doctors,
This pendulum of snow;
The shopman importunes it,
While cool, concernless No
Nods from the gilded pointers,
Nods from seconds slim,
Decades of arrogance between
The dial life and him.
About
Genius Annotation1 contributor
In this poem, life (and the end of it) are compared to a clock winding down and to a puppet dangling from a string. Repeatedly, Dickinson reduces life to a mere number game, and avoids giving any justification to the “decades of arrogance in between”.
Q&A
Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning
- 1.Real Riches
- 3.Hope
- 12.A Syllable
- 13.Parting
- 14.Aspiration
- 15.The Inevitable
- 16.A Book
- 18.A Portrait
- 23.The Lost Thought
- 24.Reticence
- 25.With Flowers
- 28.Contrast
- 29.Friends
- 30.Fire
- 31.A Man
- 32.Ventures
- 33.Griefs
- 35.Disenchantment
- 36.Lost Faith
- 37.Lost Joy
- 40.Alpine Glow
- 41.Remembrance
- 43.The Brain
- 45.The Past
- 48.Desire
- 49.Philosophy
- 50.Power
- 53.Experience
- 54.Thanksgiving Day
- 55.Childish Griefs
- 56.Consecration
- 57.Love’s Humility
- 58.Love
- 59.Satisfied
- 60.With A Flower
- 61.Song
- 62.Loyalty
- 65.Forgotten
- 67.The Master
- 72.Who?
- 74.Dreams
- 75.Numen Lumen
- 76.Nature’s changes
- 77.The Tulip
- 79.The Waking Year
- 81.March
- 82.Dawn (Version 2)
- 86.A Rose
- 88.Cobwebs
- 89.A Well
- 93.The Woodpecker
- 94.Snake
- 96.The Moon
- 97.The Bat
- 98.The Balloon
- 99.Evening
- 100.Cocoon
- 101.Sunset
- 102.Aurora
- 103.The Coming Of Night
- 104.Aftermath
- 109.Ending
- 114.Immortality
- 117.Death
- 118.Unwarned
- 121.Asleep
- 123.The Monument
- 131.Invisible
- 133.Trying To Forget
- 136.Waiting
- 140.Farewell
- 142.Dead
- 147.Joy In Death
- 154.The Soul’s Storm
- 156.Thirst
- 157.A Clock Stopped -- Not The Mantel’s
- 162.Retrospect
- 163.Eternity
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