There's an old song
"The Grandfather's clock was too large for the shelf/so it stood eighty years on the floor/ It was taller by half than the old man himself/ but it weighed not a
pennyweight more" ....
there's a bit in there I forget....it ends with :
"...but it stopped /short/never to go again when the old man died."


i have heard this song, it was written some time after the US Civil war, and the author other songs are well known...
Any barbarshop quartettes out there? About 20 years ago, a folk music show on WNYC, Woody's Children, (public radio) did a whole show on the songs of the man....
he also wrote some patriotic/propoganda songs for union -- though grandfathers clock was a later song.
the line "but it stopped /short/never to go again when the old man died." was part of the refrain (burden)

the only other song i remember for a series, was a related show about political songs that consists entirely of versions of "Rosen the bough" (For Lincoln and liberty too!)