Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
William Shakespeare. 15641616156. Sonnets xii
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; | 5 |
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; | 10 |
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. |