| Hunt and Lee, comps. The Book of the Sonnet. 1867. | | | | IV. What Singing Birds and Flowers Are in the Absence of the Beloved Person | | By William Shakespeare (1564–1616) |
| | | FROM you have I been absent in the spring, | |
| When proud-pied April, dress’d in all his trim, | |
| Hath put a spirit of youth in everything, | |
| That 1 heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him. | |
| Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell | 5 |
| Of different flowers in odor and in hue | |
| Could make me any summer’s story tell, | |
| Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew; | |
| Nor did I wonder at the lilies white, | |
| Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose: | 10 |
| They were, though sweet, but figures of delight, | |
| Drawn after you; you, pattern of all those. | |
| Yet seemed it winter still; and, you away, | |
| As with your shadow I with these did play. | |
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