Sonnet 98: from You Have I Been Absent in the Spring
Sonnet 98: from You Have I Been Absent in the Spring - meaning Summary
Longing Amid Spring's Beauty
The speaker describes being absent during spring and finding ordinary seasonal pleasures hollow without the beloved. Birds, flowers, and colors fail to inspire because they are mere reflections of the beloved’s beauty. Even when nature shows signs of youth and joy, the speaker feels winterlike emptiness until reunion. The poem frames personal longing against spring’s abundance, arguing that external beauty matters only insofar as it recalls the absent person.
Read Complete AnalysesFrom you have I been absent in the spring, When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim, Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing, That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him. Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell Of different flowers in odour 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 lily’s white, Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose; They were but 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.
Feel free to be first to leave comment.