Whilst we were wandering around old churches close to Keswick, we came across an inscription on a slate memorial, in the Church of St Michael and All Angels at Isel. The inscription is a poem written by Sir Walter Raleigh, on the eve of his execution for treason in 1618.
Even such is time, which takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, and all we have,
And pays us nought but age and dust;
Which in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wandered all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days!
And from which grave, and earth, and dust,
The Lord shall raise me up, I trust.
The inscription, on a slate monument to Sir Wilfred Lawson is dated 1632, and it makes me wonder who carved it there, and why.
The church is extremely old, dating from 1130, with many Norman features and Anglo-Saxon cross shafts in the churchyard. The Triskele Stone, the church's main treasure, was sadly stolen in 1986.
