how like winter hath my absence been, from thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year..!
what freezings have i felt, what dark days seen..!
what old decembers baseness 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 widowed wombs after their lord's decease: yet this abundant issue seemed to me, but hope of orphans, and unfathere fruit, for summer and his pleasure wait on the thee, and then away, the birds were a mute. or, if they sing: 'tis with so dull a cheer, that leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
