Roviyas

Even Such is Time Sir Walter Raleigh

Guest poem submitted by Steve Cookinham

 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 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.

I'm 59 years old, and though a lifetime avid reader (mostly history) I
really hadn't often "clicked" with a poem and so hadn't done much
exploration of the genre before stumbling onto your site a couple of years
ago.

While on what was supposed to be a 'round the world bicycle trip - Odyssey
2000 - I missed a turn in the Drakensberg range in the Transvaal in South
Africa and augured into a mountainside, breaking my pelvis, sacrum and some
ribs. End of trip for me, and after surgery I spent a couple of months
living in the home of a Boer couple in Mpumalanga. In a way the accident
wasn't a completely bad thing, in that our discussions provided each of us
insights into the others' country we didn't have before and I got to know
some wonderful people.

While I was recovering they took me one day to a used bookstore, where Petra
found a 19th century anthology of English poetry and gave it to me. I
stumbled onto Sir Walter Raleigh's "Even Such is Time" and in my near-death
experience PTSD frame of mind it struck a deep chord. I loved this poem so
much I even posted most of it on my country-store website along with a local
photograph of a spot which always reminds me of the poem:
[broken link] http://www.dayvillemerc.com/time.htm

Steve Cookinham.

Available link for download