1441How like a winter hath my absence been

1442From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!

1443What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen,

1444What old December's bareness everywhere!

1445And yet this time removed was summer's time,

1446The teeming autumn big with rich increase

1447Bearing the wanton burden of the prime,

1448Like widowed wombs after their lords' decease:

1449Yet this abundant issue seemed to me

1450But hope of orphans, and unfathered fruit;

1451For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,

1452And thou away, the very birds are mute;

1453 Or if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer

1454 That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near.

1456From you have I been absent in the spring,

1457When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim,

1458Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing,

1459That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him.

1460Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell

1461Of different flowers in odor and in hue,

1462Could make me any summer's story tell,

1463Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew;

1464Nor did I wonder at the lily's white,

1465Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;

1466They were but sweet, but figures of delight

1467Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.

1468 Yet seemed it winter still, and, you away,

1469 As with your shadow I with these did play.

1471The forward violet thus did I chide:

1472"Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,

1473If not from my love's breath? The purple pride

1474Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells

1475In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dyed."

1476The lily I condemnèd for thy hand,

1477And buds of marjoram had stol'n thy hair;

1478The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,

1479One blushing shame, another white despair;

1480A third, nor red, nor white, had stol'n of both,

1481And to his robbery had annexed thy breath;

1482But for his theft, in pride of all his growth

1483A vengeful canker ate him up to death.

1484 More flowers I noted, yet I none could see,

151485 But sweet, or color, it had stol'n from thee.