1441HOw like a Winter hath my absence beene

1442From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting yeare?

1443What freezings haue I felt, what darke daies seene?

1444What old Decembers barenesse euery where?

1445And yet this time remou'd was sommers time,

1446The teeming Autumne big with ritch increase,

1447Bearing the wanton burthen of the prime,

1448Like widdowed wombes after their Lords decease:

1449Yet this aboundant issue seem'd to me,

1450But hope of Orphans, and vn-fathered fruite,

1451For Sommer and his pleasures waite on thee,

1452And thou away, the very birds are mute.

1453 Or if they sing, tis with so dull a cheere,

1454That leaues looke pale, dreading the Winters neere.

1456FRom you haue I beene absent in the spring,

1457When proud pide Aprill (drest in all his trim)

1458Hath put a spirit of youth in euery thing:

1459That heauie Saturne laught and leapt with him.

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

1461Of different flowers in odor and in hew,

1462Could make me any summers story tell:

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

1464Nor did I wonder at the Lillies white,

1465Nor praise the deepe vermillion in the Rose,

1466They weare but sweet, but figures of delight:

1467Drawne after you, you patterne of all those.

1468 Yet seem'd it Winter still, and you away,

1469As with your shaddow I with these did play.

1471THe forward violet thus did I chide,

1472Sweet theefe whence didst thou steale thy sweet that smels

1473If not from my loues breath, the purple pride,

1474Which on thy soft cheeke for complexion dwells?

1475In my loues veines thou hast too grosely died,

1476The Lillie I condemned for thy hand,

1477And buds of marierom had stolne thy haire,

1478The Roses fearefully on thornes did stand,

1479Our blushing shame, an other white dispaire:

1480A third nor red, nor white, had stolne of both,

1481And to his robbry had annext thy breath,

1482But for his theft in pride of all his growth

1483A vengfull canker eate him vp to death.

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

151485 But sweet, or culler it had stolne from thee.