"It does, my lord," said Shakespeare.
"Then have I news for thee of price, good William," said Southampton. "The Queen intends to be present. She takes wondrous interest in all that thou dost, and has of late spoken most approvingly of thy efforts."
"I am much bounden to her Majesty," returned the poet; "and there again must feel grateful to your lordship for having turned her eye of favour towards my unworthy efforts."
"Thou hast sufficiently delighted us all, good William," said Lord Southampton; "and, if I am to judge by the mass of papers I behold here, you intend still further to delight us. Are these portions of manuscript pertaining to another production of the same sort?"
"In truth, my lord," said Shakespeare, "they do in some sort tend that way. But at present I am somewhat desultory in my doings. I have so many plans, on so many subjects, that what you behold are but the rough notes of such ideas as pass current. The scraps are of all sorts; perhaps fit for little else but to be cast to the waves without."
"Thou art, at least industrious," said Southampton, "and permit me to say, I believe not in the valueless quality of what I behold here. May I look upon one of these same unworthy scraps?" And Lord Southampton took up a fragment of paper containing some few lines of blank verse.
At first he seemed disposed to read it cursorily, as one slightly curious to know what had employed the pen of his friend. The very first line, however, seemed to strike him, and he read the verse attentively from beginning to end. He then recommenced it, and read it more slowly, observing the wondrous force of the lines more and more as he did so. He then stopped and looked at the pleasant smiling countenance of the writer, so unassuming, so devoid of all self-conceit, and then he read aloud—
"Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,
Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,
A great-siz'd monster of ingratitudes:
Those scraps are good deeds past: which are devour'd
As fast as they are made, forgot as soon
As done: Perseverance, dear my lord,
Keeps honour bright; To have done is to hang
Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail,
In monumental mockery. Take the instant way;
For honour travels in a strait so narrow,
Where one but goes abreast: keep then the path;
For emulation hath a thousand sons,
That one by one pursue. If you give way,
Or hedge aside from the direct forth right,
Like to an enter'd tide, they all rush by,
And leave you hindmost;—
Or, like a gallant horse fallen in first rank,
Lie there for pavement to the abject rear,
O'errun and trampled on. Then what do they in present,
Though less than yours in past, most o'ertop yours:
For time is like a fashionable host
That slighly shakes his parting guest by the hand;
And with his arms out-stretch'd as he would fly,
Grasps in the corner: Welcome ever smiles,
And farewell goes that sighing."
"Why," he said, "thou hast written here a whole volume in a few brief lines. Not all the learning of the ancients ever produced so much in such compass. I will learn these lines, and have them ever before me. To what pertain they, good William?"
Shakespeare smiled. "Nay, 'tis but a fragment," he said. "My often rumination supplies many such. I shall perhaps adopt them in a play I have been thinking of writing."