Song Lyrics/History of "the Clock Song"

I mentioned the other day on my blog about the kiddies wanting me to sing the song, "My Grandfather's Clock". I sang the words that I could remember which was about half of them. When I went to Baptist Women's meeting that night, I asked the ladies if they knew the words and, can you believe, not a single one of them had ever heard of the song! They asked me to sing it to them and only one of them said she had heard the song. So, I went in search of information including the words about the song. I learned that the song was actually written in 1876 by Henry Clay Work. It's popular as a bluegrass number in the US. The most common theory about the song's origin relates to a wayfarers' inn in which there stood a grandfather clock. The inn was owned by the Jenkins brothers who, when one of them died, legend has it that the clock stopped and would never go again, even with repairs. This song is supposedly responsible the longcase clock being called a "grandfather clock" . Another theory holds that the lyrics were actually written by a different man, C. Russel Christian, who also wrote a poem about his grandfather. The important thing to the grandchildren, though, are the words to the song. The part they really stopped and listened to in awe, was the chorus:
"Ninety years without slumbering,
Tick,Tock,Tick,Tock,
His life seconds numbering,
Tick,Tock,Tick,Tock,
It stopped...short...
Never to go again,
When the old man died."

That's when Livvy had to tell me about Harley, their family dog, who is also very old.They were so cute all day that I had them. Both of them are becoming great conversationlists!!