Patrick Kavanagh

Gold Watch

Gold Watch - meaning Summary

Time Kept in an Object

Kavanagh uses a gold watch as a compact emblem of memory, time and personal history. Engravings that suggest landscape and myth sit alongside mundane details—maker’s mark, repair dates and a New York purchase—so the object links private past, travel and ordinary care. The poem treats the mechanism both literally and metaphorically: precise workings that count small increments become a way to measure lived moments and the persistence of human life.

Read Complete Analyses

Engraved on the case, House and mountain And a far mist Rising from faery fountain. On inner case, No. 2244 Elgin Nath… Sold by a guy in a New York store. Dates of repairs, 1914 M. Y., 1918 H. J., She has had her own cares. Slender hands Of blue steel, And within the precious Platinum balance wheel. Delicate mechanism Counting out in her counting-house My pennies of time.

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