Simply Sonnets: Sonnet 97
Channel: OneProfessor
Date: 2020-04-03

Simply Sonnets, produced by OneProfessor (http://www.oneprofessor.com), is a project of recording William Shakespeare's Sonnets and making them available to learners everywhere. This is a recording of Sonnet 97, performed by Kirstin Wolf (http://kirstinwolf.com).

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 every where!
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.