There are many ways in which a man is like a watch, as this curious epitaph shows, which can be seen in the churchyard at Lydford, Devonshire, England:
Here lies in a horizontal position
The outside case of
George Routledge, watchmaker.
Integrity was the main-spring and prudence
the regulator of all the actions of his life;
Humane, generous and liberal,
His hand never stopt till he had relieved
distress;
So nicely regulated were his movements that
he never went wrong,
Except when set a-going by people who did
not know his key;
Even then he was easily set right again.
He had the art of disposing of his time so
well
That his hours glided away in one continued
round of pleasure.
Till, in an unlucky moment, his pulse
stopt beating.
He ran down Nov. 14, 1801, aged 57,
In hopes of being taken in hand by his
Maker,
Thoroughly cleaned, repaired, wound up and
set a-going,
In the world to come, when time shall be
no more.
(1952)
MAN AS A TEMPLE
My God, I heard this day
That none doth build a stately habitation
But he that means to dwell therein.
What house more stately hath there been
Or can be, than is man? To whose creation