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 !
yet this time removed was fummer's time;
The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,
Bearing the wanton burthen of the prime,
Like widow'd wombs after their lords' decease:
Yet this abundant iffue feem'd to me
But hope of orphans and unfather'd fruit;
For fummer and his pleasures wait on thee,
And, thou away, the very birds are mute:
Or, if they fing, 'tis with so dull a cheer
That leaves look pale, dreading the winter 's near.
From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April, dreff'd in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing,
That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him.
Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odour and in hue,
Could make me any fummer's story tell,
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew:
Nor did I wonder at the lily's white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;
They were but fweet, but figures of delight,
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.
Yet feem'd it winter ftill, and, you away,
As with your shadow I with these did play.
The forward violet thus did I chide :
Sweet thief, whence didft thou fteal thy fweet that
The purple pride Which on thy foft cheek for complexion dwells In my love's veins thou haft too groffly dyed. The lily I condemned for thy hand,
And buds of marjoram had stol'n thy hair;
The roses fearfully on thorns did ftand,
One blushing shame, another white despair;
A third, nor red nor white, had stol'n of both,
And to his robbery had annex'd thy breath;
But, for his theft, in pride of all his growth
A vengeful canker eat him up to death.
More flowers I noted, yet I none could fee
But fweet or colour it had ftol'n from thee.
Where art thou, Mufe, that thou forget'ft so long
To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?
Spend'ft thou thy fury on fome worthless song,
Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light?
Return, forgetful Mufe, and straight redeem
In gentle numbers time fo idly spent ;
Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem
And gives thy pen both skill and argument.
Rife, refty Muse, my love's fweet face furvey,
If Time have any wrinkle
graven there; If any, be a fatire to decay,
And make Time's spoils despised every where.
Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life ;
So thou prevent'ft his fcythe and crooked knife.
O truant Mufe, what shall be thy amends
For thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed?
Both truth and beauty on my love depends;
So doft thou too, and therein dignified.
Make answer, Mufe: wilt thou not haply say,
'Truth needs no colour, with his colour fix'd;
Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay;
But beft is beft, if never intermix'd'?
Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb?
Excufe not filence fo; for 't lies in thee
To make him much outlive a gilded tomb
And to be praised of ages yet to be.
Then do thy office, Muse; I teach thee how
To make him seem long hence as he shows now.
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