A web-based edition of early seventeenth-century political poetry from manuscript sources. It brings into the public domain over 350 poems, many of which have never before been published.
I3 Even such is tyme, which takes in trust
Notes. This poem, accepted as the work of Ralegh, exists in many manuscript sources, and clearly contributed to the vogue for epitaphs on him. This self-penned epitaph is an adaptation of the last stanza of an earlier Ralegh poem, titled in one copy “S.W.R. On his Mistresse Serena” (Ralegh, Poems 112-14; Trevelyan 174, 546).
“Sir Walter Raleigh’s Epitaph on his owne death. Novemb: 1618”
Even such is tyme, which takes in trust
Our youth, our joyes, and all wee have.
And payes us but with age & dust,
Within the darke & silent grave:
When wee have wandred all our wayes,
5Shuttes up the story of our dayes.
And from which death, & grave, & dust,
The Lord will rayse mee up I trust.
Source. Bodleian MS Rawl. Poet. 26, fol. 2r
Other known sources. Ralegh, Poems 80, 133; Ralegh, Prerogative 66; Trevelyan Papers 3.154; Bodleian MS Ashmole 230, fol. 343v; Bodleian MS Ashmole 1463, p. 13; Bodleian MS Don. c.54, fols. 3v, 11r; Bodleian MS Eng. Hist. c.272, p. 50; Bodleian MS Eng. Poet. c.50, fol. 31v; Bodleian MS Rawl. C. 986, fol. 15r; Bodleian MS Rawl. D. 383, fol. 140r; Bodleian MS Rawl. 859, fol. 85v; Bodleian MS Rawl. 1334, fol. 29v; Bodleian MS Rawl. Poet. 26, fol. 69v; Bodleian MS Rawl. Poet. 208, fol. 3r; Bodleian MS Tanner 82, fol. 244r; Bodleian MS Tanner 299, fol. 28v; BL Add. MS 10309, fol. 141r; BL Add. MS 18044, fol. 153v; BL Add. MS 30982, fols. 21v, 148v; BL Add. MS 43410, fol. 163v; BL Add. MS 52585, fol. 56v; BL Add. MS 73086, fol. 18r; BL MS Harley 1574, fol. 2r; BL MS Lans. 777, fol. 64r; BL MS Sloane 1842, fol. 117r; Doctor Williams’s Library MS Jones B.60, pp. 267, 282; NLS MS 2060, fol. 2r; NLW MS 5390D, p. 336; St. John’s MS S.32, fol. 34v; Folger MS V.a.418, fol. 4v; Houghton MS Eng. 628, p. 385; Rosenbach MS 1083/16, p. 109
I3
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