The Clock Struck Ten

Written for a competition using the no's 1-10 to depict a bride's impatience while waiting for her wedding day to arrive. The emphasis is on the uncertainty of life.

Nearly an hour must have passed, she felt sure,
But the clock displayed 1 o' clock and not more.
Time was cheating her, she thoroughly knew,
By now it should obviously have been past two.

Time seemed to be in shackles and she longed to set it free,
Freed, it would run like mad, making the clock strike three.
And it wouldn't pause as it had done but gallop on even more,
And continue in this vein it would till the clock announced four.

She dreamt how time would fly if she were the one to drive,
How, instead of one o' clock, the clock would rush past five.
She dreamt how quickly time'd pass, if she had the power to fix,
From five o'clock, in a trice, the clock would've struck six.

She woke, checked the clock and knew time was getting even,
For where she'd expected it to be 9 o'clock the clock said seven.
Angrily she thought had she overslept and woken up late,
The miserable clock would cruelly have still struck only eight.

She slept on and nobody woke her for she was looking so fine,
She was found dead when they came to dress her up at nine.
Instead of the bridegroom's house aa she longed, her destination turned out to be heaven,
Her eagerly awaited marriage never took place, her coffin was lifted when the clock struck ten.