In the Midnight Hour

By John Herlihy

Is it really so strange that we have to give account?

Life gives and life takes, what’s left is the amount.

We live as paupers and kings in this place of exile,

 We nurse our sorrow and seek happiness for a while.

Whatever our ambition, it’s all fool’s gold in the end,

Whether wealth or power, all from heaven descend.

It is not the having that matters, but the having done,

All of the rest slips thru our fingers as sand on the run.

Very little is important in the world, though it seems so,

After years pass by, we forget much of what we know.

They say that before death life passes before our eyes,

A long lifetime in fleeting seconds before our demise.

As the clock strikes 12 we step beyond the threshold,

In the midnight hour we give account, when all is told.

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(c) John Herlihy December 2018