XCVII

How like a winter hath my absence been

From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year

What freezing have I felt, what dark days seen

With old December's bareness everywhere

And yet this time remov'd was summer's time

The teeming Autumn big with rich increase

Bearing the wanton burthen of the prime

Like widowed wombs

after their Lord's decease

Yet this abundant issue seem'd to me

But hope of Orphans, and unfathered 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