Now that we’re into December, winter is upon us, and what better way to celebrate the snow in many parts of the country than with some beautiful Shakespearean poetry. Sonnet 97 is a classic poem about seeing one’s absence from another as a long, cold winter:
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 everywhere!
And yet this time remov’d 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.
Though most people look at wintertime as a down, depressing time of year, I try to look at it as a time to take a little emotional hibernation, where I do a little more introspection into how my previous year has been and what lessons I can take into the new year. Winter doesn’t have to be all bad, you know!
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