Walter Raleigh

Sir Walter Raleigh (which he usually spelled Ralegh)
c. 1552 – October 29, 1618

English writer, poet, courtier and explorer, favorite, for a time, of Queen Elizabeth I. His exciting, interesting, controversial life came to an end when, under the reign of James I, he was beheaded at the Tower of London, either for being an atheist, on charges of treason, maybe to appease the Spanish for attacking their territory, for simply for being unpopular with the king, or even for failing to discover the elusive El Dorado...

Poems

Like Truthless Dreams, So Are My Joys Expired
by Sir Walter Raleigh

Like truthless dreams, so are my joys expired,
And past return are all my dandled days;
My love misled, and fancy quite retired—
Of all which passed the sorrow only stays.

My lost delights, now clean from sight of land,
Have left me all alone in unknown ways;
My mind to woe, my life in fortune's hand—
Of all which passed the sorrow only stays.

As in a country strange, without companion,
I only wail the wrong of death's delays,
Whose sweet spring spent, whose summer well-nigh done—
Of all which passed the sorrow only stays.

Whom care forewarns, ere age and winter cold,
To haste me hence to find my fortune's fold.




Life
by Sir Walter Raleigh

What is our life? A play of passion,
Our mirth the music of division,
Our mother's wombs the tiring-houses be,
Where we are dressed for this short comedy.
Heaven the judicious sharp spectator is,
That sits and marks still who doth act amiss.
Our graves that hide us from the setting sun
Are like drawn curtains when the play is done.
Thus march we, playing, to our latest rest,
Only we die in earnest, that's no jest.


--Cat