The hands are at eleven o’clock
There’s an hour of life to spend,
I haven’t looked since seven o’clock,
Where did it go, my friend?
We all were out there, having a ball
Or doing what had to be done,
And sleeping, mating, loving and hating,
Thinking that life was fun.

We had no thought of how far we’d come,
We laughed in the sun and rain,
And cried sometimes, we were overcome
With the thought of another’s pain,
We left some friends on a different track
And our loved ones disappeared,
Lost forever, they won’t be back
And the thought brings us to tears.

So what will we do with the days to come
That have dwindled down to a few,
Will we all forget, and despite regret
Keep doing the things we do?
There is just one thing we should mull upon
As we’re drawn to the sky above,
That the maker gives and the maker takes
But the greatest of gifts is love.

So now I look in my lover’s eyes
You’ve been faithful, good and true,
I wouldn’t have got to eleven o’clock
If I hadn’t been loving you.
You baked the bread with your loving hands
And I broke the bread for us,
But once that terrible midnight chimes
I’ll leave on a different bus.

So let’s be thankful for what we’ve got,
And everything that we’ve had,
The toys, the joys, the girls and the boys
And everything good and bad.
There’s a greater plan in the universe
And it waits, beyond despair,
It’s not the end in that tasselled hearse,
I’ll be waiting for you, there!

David Lewis Paget