Sonnet 97

How like a winter hath my absence been

From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year.

What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen,

What old December’s bareness everywhere.

And yet this time removed was summer’s time,

The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,

Bearing the wanton burden of the prime,

Like widow’d wombs after their lords’ decease.

Yet this abundant issue seem’d to me

But hope of orphans and unfather’d 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.

It’s felt like winter has not left since

I left you, the joy of the year—

Coldness inside and nights that convince

The days to go darker and darker.

And yet, it was summer, in spite of that.

Now autumn is passing with full harvest.

The earth has spread itself out,

Consumed with energy and rest.

But the fruits seem to me like orphans.

And summer longed for its hosts.

With us apart, there are no more seasons.

Even birds seem like ghosts.

Or if they’re not, their song is so thin,

It makes the leaves pale, leaves branches shaken.