Textuality » 4ALS Interacting
Sonnet 73
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consumed with that which it was nourish’d by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
This poem belongs to Shakespeare’s collection 154. it is organised into 3 quatrains and a rhyming couplet.
The intelligent reader can understand the speaking voice is not young. This is underlines by the use of 3 metaphors.
In the first quatrain, at line 1, he tells that his age is like a “time of year,” autumn, when the leaves have almost completely fallen from the trees, and the weather has grown cold, and the birds have left their branches.
In the second quatrain, at line 5, he says that his age is like late twilight, “As after sunset fadeth in the west”.
In the third quatrain, the speaker compares himself to the glowing remnants of a fire, which lies “on the ashes of his youth”.
In the couplet, the speaker tells the young man that he must perceive these things, and that his love must be strengthened by the knowledge that he will soon be parted from the speaker when the speaker, like the fire, is extinguished by time.