REELY'S POETRY BLOG

On the evening before his beheading, October 29, 1618, it is said that Sir Walter Raleigh wrote these words in his Bible:

E’en such is time! who takes in trust
Our youth, our joys and all we have,
And pays us but with age and dust:
Who, in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wandered all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days!
But from this earth, this grave, this dust
The Lord will raise me up I trust.

I didn’t know that when I first read the verse in a book of poetical quotations where it was listed among other entries under the category “Graves.” It rather takes on a different sort of significance if he really did write it knowing that he was going to have his head cut off the next day!