How Like A Winter Hath My Absence Been

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;