This poem by Sir Walter Raleigh, “The Conclusion,” is thought to be a revision of an earlier verse by him. The changes, believed to have been made shortly before his execution on October 29, 1618, are reflected in a version discovered tucked inside his Bible.
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.
Commendatory Verse by Walter Raleigh (1576) Sir Walter Raleigh’s Patent to Settle Virginia (1584) “A Vision Upon this Concept of the Faery Queene” by Sir Walter Raleigh (1590) “The Lie” (ca. 1590s) “How unworthy a choice”; an excerpt from the preface to The History of the World by Sir Walter Raleigh (1614)
