"I forsake none," said Clara. "Who knows or cares for one so solitary in the world! I bequeath to him I most love, all my worldly goods—myself I dedicate to heaven."
"There is one other," said the Countess, "and whom I have heard you mention in terms of admiration and respect—will not his persuasion avail."
"He is indeed a man," said Clara, with enthusiasm, "one whose words might do much. But are you quite sure he would not rather approve than censure my resolve? He knows something of my story, but like yourself, he is bound by me to secresy whilst I remain in England."
"Listen," said the Countess, "to what this friend has to urge;" and taking from a sort of cabinet a small packet, she read the following:—
I.
"From fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty's rose might never die.
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:
But then, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed'st thy light's frame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel,
Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament,
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content,
And, tender churl, mak'st waste in niggarding,
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.
II.
When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,
Thy youth's proud livery, so gazed on now,
Will be a tatter'd weed, of small worth held:
Then, being ask'd where all thy beauty lies,
Where all the treasure of thy lusty days;
To say, within thine own deep sunken eyes,
Were an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise.
How much more praise deserved thy beauty's use,
If thou could'st answer—'This fair-child of mine
Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse,'—
Proving his beauty by succession thine.
This were to be new made, when thou art old,
And see thy blood warm, when thou feel'st it cold."
There was a pause after the Countess had read these sonnets, and which she, in common with the entire Court circle, had been delighted with when they first appeared. The beauty of the poetry, like sweet music, placed a spell upon the pair; such verse in those lordly apartments had a double influence.
As Clara gazed around upon the arrassed walls, and then glanced from the window upon the sweet scene without,—when she looked towards the home of the poet, the spirit of that man seemed to breath around. In some sort the Countess of Leicester felt this, for both these high-born ladies knew Shakespeare; his exquisite poetry had stolen over their hearts. They were of the few of their day who already appreciated him.