AG: So, then..
Student: Why was (Walter) Raleigh executed?
AG: I don’t know. Let’s see, He went.. did go to Virginia or something, and… politics..
[Students brief discussion] – (Did he stay?)
AG: No, no he went back to England…” The night before his execution” [“Even Such Is Time”], published in 1628:
Even such is Time, that takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, our all we have,
And pays us but with earth and dust;
Who in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wander’d all our ways.
Shuts up the story of our days
But from this earth, this grave, this dust
My God shall raise me up, I trust.
“But from this earth. this grave, this dust/ My God shall raise me up, I trust”. [AG reading from the textbook] – “The poem as a whole existed only in manuscript form until 1902”.
So that was..that was, page 137, on another poem of his.
[Details on Sir Walter Raleigh’s execution – see David Hume – The Execution of Sir Walter Raleigh and the events leading thereto
[Audio for the above can be heard here, beginning at approximately twenty-four-and-three-quarter minutes in and concluding at approximately twenty-five-and-three-quarter minutes in]
I love this poem. I first read it in a book (don’t remember which one) and copied it to research it at a later date. Thank you for making it so easy to find.