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C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

The Hour-Glass of Ashes

By Friedrich Rückert (1788–1866)

Translation of Charles Timothy Brooks

WHEN Torismund, for love of Rosalind,

Consumed to ashes in the flames he fanned,

She did not strew his ashes on the wind,

But gathered it all up with faithful hand;

And now he serves the child’s inventive mind,

Within her hour-glass placed instead of sand:

Glad that through her, he still no peace doth find

In death, who found none in the living’s land.