accustomed as you were

Accustomed as you were to riding roughshod on the black
track of your pampered whims, you lost your heart
to the artful charms of a local country girl -
then hurled your fortune to the wind in hasty flight.
Frightening, implacable in his wounded pride, your father
would rather lose an errant son than accept
his inept and socially demeaning marital bond,
responding in wrath with threats of disinheritance.
The terrible ticking of calendrical clocks told
of the old man ageing, but holding it back
with unslackening grit in a mutual determination
to motion the other first to the life hereafter.
Although you hoped that time was on your side,
by early death your dreams were nullified.