William Shakespeare

Sonnet xii

HOW like a Winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
What freezings I have 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 Lord’s 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 mute:

Or if they sing, ’tis with so dull a cheer
That leaves look pale, dreading the Winter’s near.