Poem

In the new film about the Elizabethan era, Sir Walter Raleigh plays a prominent role.

Sir Walter Raleigh – pirate, explorer and poet - was one of Queen Elisabeth’s favourites who unfortunately fell in love with one of her ladies in waiting, Bess Throckmorton. Although he was later pardoned his rivalry with the other favourites of the Queen caused him to be accused of treason by Jacob I in 1603. The death sentence was finally carried out in 1618 after a brief spell of liberty, where he undertook a tragic expedition in search of El Dorado. This ended unfortunately with an incident where his men sacked the Spanish outpost San Thomé. After his return, his beheading was demanded as an appeasement by the Spanish. He wrote this poem in his Bible during his final confinement in the Tower. 

Epitaph
Even such is Time, which 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:
And from which earth, and grave, and dust,
The Lord shall raise me up, I trust.

Sir Walter Raleigh (1618)