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Sir Walter Raleigh. (1554?–1618) (continued)

235

Methought I saw the grave where Laura lay. 1

Verses to Edmund Spenser.

236

Cowards [may] fear to die; but courage stout,
Rather than live in snuff, will be put out.

On the snuff of a candle the night before he died.—Raleigh’s Remains, p. 258, ed. 1661.

237

Even such is time, that takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, our 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,
My God shall raise me up, I trust!

Written the night before his death.—Found in his Bible in the Gate-house at Westminster.

238

Shall I, like an hermit, dwell
On a rock or in a cell?

Poem.

239

If she undervalue me,
What care I how fair she be? 2

Poem.

240

Fain would I climb, yet fear I to fall. 3

Poem.

241

Fain would I climb, yet fear I to fall. 4

242

[History] hath triumphed over time, which besides it nothing but eternity hath triumphed over.

Historie of the World. Preface.

243

O eloquent, just, and mightie Death! whom none could advise, thou hast perswaded; what none hath dared, thou hast done; and whom all the world hath flattered,

Note 1.
Methought I saw my late espoused saint.—John Milton: Sonnet xxiii.

Methought I saw the footsteps of a throne.—William Wordsworth: Sonnet. [back]

Note 2.
If she be not so to me,
What care I how fair she be?
George Wither: The Shepherd’s Resolution. [back]

Note 3.
Written in a glass window obvious to the Queen’s eye. “Her Majesty, either espying or being shown it, did under-write, ‘If thy heart fails thee, climb not at all.’”—Thomas Fuller: Worthies of England, vol. i. p. 419. [back]

Note 4.
Written in a glass window obvious to the Queen’s eye. “Her Majesty, either espying or being shown it, did under-write, ‘If thy heart fails thee, climb not at all.’”—Thomas Fuller: Worthies of England, vol. i. p. 419. [back]

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