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William Shakespeare, 1564-1616 [1640], Poems: vvritten by Wil. Shake-speare. Gent (Printed... by Tho. Cotes, and are to be sold by Iohn Benson [etc.], London) [word count] [S11600].

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Complaint for his Loves absence. [Sonnet XCVII / Sonnet XCVIII / Sonnet XCIX]
How like a Winter hath my absence beene
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting yeare?
What freezings have I felt, what darke daies seene?
What old Decembers barenesse every where?
And yet this time remov'd was sommers time,
The teeming Autumne big with rich increase,
Bearing the wanton burthen of the prime,
Like widdowed wombes after their Lords decease:
Yet this aboundant issue seem'd to me,
But hope of Orphans, and un-fathered fruite,
For Sommer and his pleasures waite on thee,
And thou away, the very birds are mute.
Or if they sing, tis with so dull a cheere,
That leaves looke pale, dreading the Winters neare.
From you have I beene absent in the spring,
When proud pide Aprill (drest in all his trim)
Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing:
That heavie Saturne laught and leapt with him,
Yet not the laies of birds, nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odor and in hew,
Could make me any sommers story tell:
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew.
Nor did I wonder at the Lillies white,
Nor praise the deepe Vermillion in the Rose,

-- --

They were but sweete, but figures of delight:
Drawne after you, you patterne of all those.
  Yet seem'd it winter still, and you away,
  As with your shaddow I with these did play.
The forward violet thus did I chide,
Sweet theefe whence didst thou steale thy sweet that smels,
If not from my loves breath, the purple pride,
Which on thy soft cheeke for complexion dwells?
In my loves veines thou hast too grossely died,
The Lilly I condemned for thy hand,
And buds of Marjerom had stolne thy haire,
The Roses fearefully on thornes did stand,
Our blushing shame, another white dispaire:
A third nor red, nor white, had stolne of both,
And to his robbry had annext thy breath,
But for his theft in pride of all his growth,
A vengefull canker eate him up to death.
  More flowers I noted, yet I none could see,
  But sweet, or colour it had stolne from thee.
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William Shakespeare, 1564-1616 [1640], Poems: vvritten by Wil. Shake-speare. Gent (Printed... by Tho. Cotes, and are to be sold by Iohn Benson [etc.], London) [word count] [S11600].