How like a winter hath my absence been

From Thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!

What freezings have I felt; what dark days seen,

What old December's bareness everywhere!



And yet this time removed was summer's time:

The teeming autumn big with rich increase,

Bearing the wanton burden of the prime

Like widow'd wombs after their lords' decease;



Yet this abundant issue seem'd to me

But hope of orphans, and unfather'd fruit;

For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,

And, thou away, the very birds are more;

Or if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer,

That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near.