its moral uses, its beauty, might have pleaded for its 

 continuance. It spoke of moderate labors, of pleas- 

 ures not protracted after sunset, of temperance and 

 good hours. It was the primitive clock, the horo- 

 logue of the first world. Adam could scarce have 

 missed it in Paradise. The "shepherd carved it out 

 quaintly in the sun," and turning philosopher by the 

 very occupation, provided it with mottoes more touch- 

 ing than tombstones. c , , , , 



'Tis an old dial with many a stain: 



In Summer crowned with drifting orchard 



bloom, 

 Tricked in the Autumn with the yellow rain, 



And white in Winter like a marble tomb. 



And round about its gray, time-eaten brow 



Lean letters speak a worn and shattered 



row: 

 "I am a Shade a Shadowe, too, arte thou. 



I mark the Time. Saye! Gossip! Dost thou 

 soe?" . ,. n , 



Austin Dobson, 



Sun-Dial Mottoes 



A clock the time may wrongly tell, 

 I, never, if the sun shines well. 



Old English. 



Let others tell of storms and showers, 

 I'll only count your sunny hours. 



Sun- dial at Sandringham, 



I count none but sunny hours, 

 Be the day weary, be the day long, 

 Soon it shall ring to even song. 



