Pickering's poem moves through three ways of measuring time, each addressed as a "father": the hourglass and water clock, the pendulum clock, and the gold pocket watch. Each stanza opens with the same phrase, "Father of...", as if time-keeping devices were ancestors, with each one begetting the next.
The first stanza is slow and fluid. Its string of verbs, "wells, brims, falls, dwells", mimics sand and water trickling down "without hurry or haste." The second is mechanical, with the swinging "(tick)" and "(tock)" and wheels that "serrate" minutes and "excise" moons. The third is polished and luxurious, full of gold, jewels and chimes, yet its verbs turn quietly predatory: the watch is "digesting the hours, / sowing the minutes, plucking the day."
The speaker seems fascinated rather than upset. The mood is admiring and watchful, though the cutting, devouring language hints that time, however beautiful its machinery, steadily consumes our days.