How like a winter hath my absence been <br />From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year! <br />What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen! <br />What old December's bareness everywhere! <br />And yet this time removed was summer's time, <br />The teeming autumn, big with rich increase, <br />Bearing the wanton burden of the prime, <br />Like widowed wombs after their lords' decease: <br />Yet this abundant issue seemed to me <br />But hope of orphans, and unfathered fruit, <br />For summer and his pleasures wait on thee, <br />And thou away, the very birds are mute. <br /> Or, if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer, <br /> That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near.<br /><br />William Shakespeare<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sonnet-97-how-like-a-winter-hath-my-absence-been/
