Read "The Clock-Winder" by Thomas Hardy online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
IT is dark as a cave, / Or a vault in the nave / When the iron door / Is closed, and the floor / Of the church relaid / With trowel and spade.
But the parish-clerk / Cares not for the dark / As he winds in the tower / At a regular hour / The rheumatic clock, / Whose dilatory knock / You can hear when praying / At the day's decaying, / Or at any lone while / From a pew in the aisle.