Answer:
What measures out time until in time all is smashed to it?
Whiling away the hours of flowers, Walking through fields of gold. Preening and pruning in lights fading hours, For petals to freeze in the cold. What is it?
My first is in blood and also in battle. My second is in acorn, oak, and apple. My third and fourth are both the same. In the center of sorrow and twice in refrain. My fifth starts eternity ending here. My last is the first of last, Oh Dear.
I am free for the taking. Through all of your life, though given but once at birth. I am less than nothing in weight, but will fell the strongest of you if held.
To cross the water I'm the way, for water I'm above. I touch it not and, truth to say, I neither swim nor move.
What covers its face with its hands, speaks no language, yet most known what it's saying?