New Spring, 25

Tell me who first taught clocks to chime,
Made minutes, hours, divisions of time?
It was a cold and sorrowful elf;
He sat in the winter-night, wrapp’d in himself,
And counted the mouse’s squeakings mysterious,
And the wood-worm’s regular tick so serious.

Tell me who first did kisses suggest?
It was a mouth all glowing and blest;
It kiss’d and it thought of nothing beside.
The fair month of May was then in its pride,
The flowers were all from the earth fast springing,
The sun was laughing, the birds were singing.