An Analysis of Sir Walter Relegh's "Time"

TIME

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 Ralegh -

According to the speaker, “time” not only gives him an empty promise of ever-joyous life, but also eventually drags him along to pitiless “death” who takes every thing he has from him. Firstly, from the first three lines of the poem, it can be inferred that the speaker once lived a life so youthful, pleasurable, and thriving. Never was he aware of the very fact that, as time passes by, one gets older and older and the body once vigorous turns worn-out. Fortune and fame accumulated all during one’s life can be gone merely in a night. Finally, from paragraphs 4-6, most important of all, death, absolutely inescapable and unpredictable, comes to end every...