Shakespeare's Sonnet 97

How like a winter hath my absence beenFrom 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 meBut 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.

How like winter my absence from you has been—you who bring pleasure to the passing year! What bitter cold I have felt, what dark days I have seen! Everywhere, the barrenness of bleak December!
And yet this time apart was summer, and fruitful autumn, heavy with a rich harvest, carrying the abundant offspring of spring like women still pregnant after their husbands have died. Yet all this plentiful growth seemed to me only the promise of orphans and fatherless fruit. For summer and its pleasures depend on you, and when you are away, even the birds are silent.
Or if they sing, their song is so joyless that the leaves look pale, afraid that winter is near.