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