Rain, sleet, and snow. I could not have picked a more perfect day to schedule a trip to Costo to have my studded tires put on. Autumn has disappeared almost instantly and winter has reached our doorstep.
William Shakespeare wrote 154 poems in sonnet form dealing with such themes as the passing of time, love, beauty, and mortality. The poems were published in 1609, except for two. They were “The Passionate Pilgrim” and “A Lover’s Complaint”, published in 1599.
Shakespeare’s Sonnet No. 97 has a winter theme which seems quite appropriate for today.
Shakespeare’s Sonnet No. XCVII
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.
Till next time,
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