by Coleridge · Cluster: Mortality · Grave · Memento Mori
Abstract
Coleridge’s free version of Amaltei’s Latin epigram (via Jonson): the sands of the hour-glass were once a swain who loved in vain, so lovers’ ashes find no rest; epigram on time, death and unrequited love.
Connections
Topoi: Tempus Fugit, Memento Mori Motifs: Clock, Dust Themes & Concepts: Mortality, Unrequited Frustrated Love Forms & Genres: Epigram
Testo integrale / Full text
O think, fair maid! these sands that pass
In slender threads adown this glass,
Were once the body of some swain,
Who lov’d too well and lov’d in vain,
And let one soft sigh heave thy breast, 5
That not in life alone unblest
E’en lovers’ ashes find no rest.
First published in The Courier, August 30, 1811; included in Essays
on His Own Times, iii. 994. Now collected for the first time.
The original is a translation of a Latin Epigram, ‘Horologium Pulvereum,
Tumulus Alcippi,’ by Girolamo Amaltei.