Before we go into summarizing Sonnet 73, we should make one thing clear from the start: not much

really
happens in this poem as far as ideas are concerned. Basically, you've got one idea (the speaker is growing old,
and it stinks) that runs from line 1 all the way down to line 12.
In lines 13-14, you get a different idea, though it's related to the first one. The speaker tells the person he is
talking to that, because he (the speaker) is going to die soon, the other person should treasure their love all the
more.
Fair enoughso why are we reading this poem exactly? Well, the thing is that, this being a poem and all, it's a
lot less about what the poet says and a lot more about how he says it. In this case, how the poet says it makes
all the difference. That's because Sonnet 73 is really all about the poet showing offby using a different main
metaphor in each of the three quatrains.
In quatrain 1, the main idea is all about the changing of the seasons: the speaker compares his middle-aged self
to a tree that is losing its leaves in fall. In quatrain 2, he changes imagery. Now, the speaker compares himself
to a fading sunset. Then, in quatrain 3, he changes things up again, this time comparing himself to the last glow
of a fire in the process of burning out.
Throughout all this time, we haven't heard anything about love, or the specific relationship between the
speaker and whomever he is speaking to. So when the concluding couplet comes around, it gets to have a nice
surprise effect by revealing exactly the details that have remained hidden until now. This is all pretty nifty, in
Shmoop's humble opinion
QUATRAIN 1 SUMMARY
Line 1
That time of year thou mayst in me behold,
The very first line of Shakespeare's poem hits us up with some classic, you know, Shakespearean
language, so to speakstuff like "thou," "mayst," and "behold."
Really, though, what the speaker is saying here is very simple: "You can see that time of year in
me."
Well, maybe that isn't so clear after all. Which time of year is he talking about? The speaker hasn't
told us yet, so we'll have to wait for the next line to find out.
Also, isn't it a bit weird for the speaker to say that you can see a "time of year" in him? Is the speaker
a tree? Maybe, but it doesn't seem very likely. We're willing to bet that we're dealing with
a metaphor herebut let's just ride the poem out and see where it takes us.
Line 2
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
So, what time of year "mayst thou behold" in the speaker? Fall, it sounds like. Can we be any more
specific than that? Is it early fall, late fall, middle fall?
The speaker doesn't seem too sure. If there are still "yellow leaves" on the tree, then it is probably
early fall. If there are none, then it sounds more like late fallalmost winter. And if there are "few,"
then that sounds like somewhere in the middle.
Is the speaker totally open about which of these options is the true one? Or does he change his mind
twicefirst from "yellow leaves" to "none," and then from "none" to "few"so that the last option
shows his true opinion?
We're not sure that this line gives you enough information to answer this last questionwe'll have to
keep reading to find out for sure. One thing's for sure though: generally speaking, the speaker thinks
that his life is in its autumn phase.
Which raises the question: what's the autumn of a life? (Now we're getting into, you know, that
whole metaphor business.) Is the speaker super old and geriatric? Nah, that's winter. We're betting
autumn's a metaphor for middle age.
Depending on where the speaker is in his autumn phase (he hasn't told us yet), he might be in early,
middle, or late middle age.
 But we're getting ahead of ourselves. We don't even know where those leaves are hanging. Let's read
on to find out.
Line 3
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Line 3 tells us where those leaves (however many of them there are) are hanging: on the "boughs" of
some trees that are "shak[ing] against the cold."
What's the speaker talking about here, and how does it fit into the general picture (or metaphor) he's
been sketching for us so far?
Actually, it's pretty simple. If the speaker is comparing himself to a tree, then the "boughs" or, if you
like, limbs of that tree must be like you got it: the limbs of his body.
And the cold? We think it's pretty much up to interpretation, but we'd say it's got to have something
to do with old age, death, sicknessyou know, the general bad stuff that happens to you when you
get old.
Anything else interesting going on in this line? Like, maybe, a hidden joke? We'll give you a hint:
think of who wrote this poem.
Got it? That's right. We don't know about you, but we think there's a pretty clear pun in here. A
"bough" isn't that far from a "spear," if you think about itso a "bough" that "shake[s]" is pretty
much like a "spear" that "shake[s]," making this a secret reference to our main man himself.
Apparently, Shakespeare enjoyed working shout-outs to himself into his poems. For other sonnets
that play jokes on Shakespeare's name (leading to lots of obscene puns), check out Sonnets
135 and 136.
Line 4
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
Here, the speaker goes a bit further in describing those "boughs which shake against the cold" he
introduced in the last line. Let's see if we can break down what he's saying to make sense of it.
First thing's first: "Bare ruined choirs." The words "bare" and "ruined" shouldn't cause you too much
trouble, but the word "choirs" is a bit trickier. It's actually an example of metonymy, as the speaker's
referring to a piece of furniturethe wooden seats in a church where the members of the choir sit.
Who are the members of this choir? Shakespeare tells us at the end of the line: the "sweet birds" that
"sang" there.
Bearing in mind that everything we've learned so far in quatrain 1 is a metaphor for the speaker
being in middle age, it's a little unclear what these "sweet birds" might stand in for. Got any ideas?
We're not positive, but we think the general idea must be something like youthful charmand the
same goes for the "leaves" we learned about in line 2. Now that the choirs are bare, his youth is
gone.
And the word "late" in this line doesn't mean what you probably think it means. The idea isn't that
this choir of birds is giving a late-night performance on the branch. Instead, "late" here means
something like lately, or recently.
In other words, it wasn't long ago that the birds were singing in the boughs. Does this mean (going
back to the metaphor in line 2) that it must be early fall, or early middle age?
We don't think sonot necessarily, anyway. The general idea is more that the speaker is amazed and
shocked at how recently he was young, at how quickly time passes.
Now that we've got one quatrain under our belts, we thought we'd draw your attention to the meter of
the poem. Hear that daDUM daDUM under the lines? That's iambic pentameter, the chosen meter of
sonnet writers the world over.
 And while we're on the subject of form, did you notice anything else at work here? How about
a rhyme scheme? "Behold" rhymes with "cold" and "hang" rhymes with "sang," which gives us
ABAB. Check out our "Form and Meter" section for more.
QUATRAIN 2 SUMMARY
Line 5
In me thou seest the twilight of such day,
Does this line remind you of anything? That's right: this line recalls the very beginning of the poem.

So line 5 is a lot like line 1. In both of them the speaker is talking to some "thou" person; in both of
them, the speaker tells this person that he (or she) can "behold" or "see" something "in" him. Only
now the speaker is comparing himself to a time of the day, instead of a time of the year.
But, "Such day"? What does he mean, such day? Once again, the poet sneakily doesn't give us all the
information we need, thus forcing us to read on to the next line. He's a clever one, that Shakespeare,
and he's a master of enjambment.
Line 6
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Ah, now we see what kind of day the speaker means. That said, the word order here can be a little bit
tricky.
Just to be sure we're on the same page here, let's rearrange this line (and the end of the previous line)
as follows: "the twilight of such day as fadeth in the west after sunset." Putting the words in this
order lets you see more clearly what Shakespeare means: the last bit of day that is fading after the
sun has already set.
Based on what we've read of the poem so far, do you have any guesses about what stage of life this is
a metaphor for? Yes? Good. Let's keep reading to see if you're right.
Line 7
Which by and by black night doth take away,
We're sure you got the general gist of what's going on here during your first read-through of the
poem. That said, once you actually take a close look at what's going on, the grammar can be a bit
tricky.
Just so that we're on the same page: the word "Which" at the beginning of this line refers back to the
"twilight of such day" we learned about back in line 5.
Line 6, of course, told us more about the kind of day he was talking about.
What new, meaningful information does line 7 add to what we already know about this fading day?
We think it's basically a change of focus. From the previous two lines, we know that the sun has
already set, but that a glow still remains on the horizon. Now, line 7 shows us the inevitable flipside
of that image: if daylight is fading, that means "black night" is increasing and taking away the day.
Now we get to ask you the same question we asked for the previous line: is this all a metaphor? And,
if so, what's it a metaphor for? Just so you know, your time for guessing might be running outnot
too give too much away, but our man Shakespeare might well end up spilling the beans all by
himself
Line 8
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
There you have it, folks. Just in case we really couldn't figure it out, Shakespeare tells us: the "black
night" that takes away the day is the "second self"a.k.a. the alter ego, the double, the brother from
another motherof Death itself Ooga booga booga!
Once the beginning of line 8 reveals that quatrain 2 is all a big metaphor for aging and death, it
becomes easy to see how the end of the line contains a double meaning, so that the word "rest"
meansboth the sleep that comes at the end of each day, and the metaphorical rest of death, that comes
at the end of a person's life.
 Finally, at the end of this quatrain, we can safely say we've got a new addition to our rhyme scheme.
"Day" rhymes with "away" and "west" rhymes with "rest," but none of those guys rhyme with any of
the words from quatrain 1. So we've got ABAB CDCD. Nifty, no?
QUATRAIN 3 SUMMARY
Line 9
In me thou seest the glowing of such fire,
Line 9 begins the third major section of the poem, quatrain 3. Are you starting to notice a pattern
here?
That's right once again the speaker is telling the person that he's talking to that there's something to
be seen in him.
But the similarity between these three lines doesn't end there. Notice also that each one of these three
section-openers introduces adifferent set of imagery to serve as a metaphor for the speaker's situation
in life. In line 1 we got the time of year, the dominant metaphor in quatrain 1; in line 5 we got the
"twilight of such day," the dominant metaphor in quatrain 2, and now, at the beginning of quatrain 3,
we get "the glowing of such fire."
Based on what we've read of the poem so far, line 9 can help us make some predictions about the rest
of quatrain 3. From where we're standing now, we can probably assume that quatrain 3 will use fire
imagery as a metaphor for aging and death. But hey, that's just Shmoop's guess. What's yours?
Line 10
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
Hmm, now this is a tad unexpected. Doesn't it seem a little bit like Shakespeare is mixing up his
metaphors here? Like, sure, the "ashes" bit at the beginning of this line sounds like it goes with the
"fire" imagerybut what about the "his youth" part?
It's not that the general idea is unclearwe can tell that "his youth" refers to the earlier fuel for the
fire that is now burnt up and reduced to ashesbut it still seems weird that Shakespeare would refer
to the glowing of the fire as having a "youth."
It's almost as if, in line 9 and the beginning of line 10 (up to "ashes"), Shakespeare decided to refer to
the human speaker of the poem in terms of imagery derived from firesbut then, in the rest of line
10, he doubles back on himself and starts referring to the glowing firemetaphorically in terms
derived from human life.
We read this line as personifying fire. No seriously. If fire has a youth, which is when it's young and
strong and blazing, then it has to have an old age. That's when a fire's just kind of smoldering,
burning up the last chunks of wood, but mostly just reducing to ashes.
Line 11
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
In this line, we can see Shakespeare following the same pattern he started in line 10: describing the
glowing of the fire (which he originally introduced as a way of illustrating human experience) in
human terms.
Here, the last remnant of the fire burning on top of a heap of ashes gets compared to a person on their
deathbed.
We don't know about you, but we think the word "must" here conveys a strong sense of the
inevitability of death.
Line 12
Consumed with that which it was nourished by.
This line might seem a little strange on a first reading, but it becomes less so when you remember
that (strictly speaking) the "glowing" of the fire, not the fire itself, is the central image of quatrain 3.
The "glowing" was originally "nourished" (i.e. kept in existence) by the wood or whatever it was
burning. But as the fire keeps burning, the fuel turns to ash.
 Soon enough, the time will come when there is no fuel left. When that happens, it will be safe to say
that the "glowing" has been "consumed" (i.e. destroyed) by the same thing (the "fire") that kept it in
existence, since the ashes are snuffing out the fire.
Of course, in all of this you have to bear in mind that the glowing fire image isn't just there for its
own sake. Based on the poem so far, it's pretty clear that this imagery is being used as a metaphor for
human life.
How would you match up line 12 to an idea of human life? We at Shmoop would put it this way:
youth has a "fire in its belly" that makes the beginning of life an exciting time. After a while,
however, people who lead very active, exciting lives can experience "burnout." Thus, you could say
that the very same energy that kept a person going was the same thing that eventually wore them
down.
(Notice how, when we use expressions like "fire of youth" and "burnout" in everyday English, we
end up using poetic metaphors similar to what Shakespeare uses in his poem? We think that's pretty
darn cool.)
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
With line 13, we move into a different phase of the poem: the final couplet. Where the first 12 lines
of the poem (divided into quatrains 1-3), impressed us with their Rubik's cube-like ability to take a
topic (Life/Death/Aging) and twist it around into new shapes and colors, the couplet's job is to take
all of that stuff and (a) sum it up, and (b) add a new twist.
So that's the challenge. Let's see how line 13 meets it. As far as summing up goes, it looks to us at
Shmoop like Shakespeare does a pretty handy job of this in the first three words of the line: "This
thou perceiv'st." This works as a way of summing up in two ways. First, there is the simple repetition
of one of the main ideas of the poem: sight. So the verb "perceiv'st" in line 13 echoes not only the
preceding "seest" from line 9, but also the "seest" in line 5, and even takes us all the way back to the
word "behold" in the first line of the poem.
We see the second way the line acts as a summing-up device when we ask, "What is it that 'thou
perceiv'st'"? In other words, what does the "This" at the beginning of line 13 refer to?
If you ask Shmoop (though you may have a different interpretation), the word "This" at the
beginning of the line really refers to everything that the speaker has talked about before; in a sense,
"This" refers to the preceding twelve lines of the poem.
You could almost imagine that the speaker at this point is, literally, imagining that the "thou" he is
talking to is reading this very poem, the one that you Shmoopers are currently reading. Pretty cool,
don't you think?
Okay, so that's how line 13 gets the idea of summing-up in there. As for the twist, that comes in the
second half of the line. Any guesses what it is?
Yep, "love." For the first time, Shakespeare makes clear the nature of the relationship between the
person speaking and the person he is speaking to.
Not only that, but he makes a connection between the previous twelve lines and the new theme he's
introducing. Perceiving all these things, the speaker says, will make the love of the person he is
talking to "more strong."
Why will this happen? Let's move on to the last line of the poem to find out.
Line 14
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
Now, we get the final payoff of the poem. The speaker is telling the listener that not only will their
love "become more strong" when they realize that the speaker won't be around forever, but they'll
also love him "well," i.e., they'll cherish him all the more.
 In this way, Shakespeare neatly ties the themes of love and death together into a single complex idea.
Way to go, Big Willy, way to go.
This sense of the special preciousness of those things that don't last forever is a common theme in
Shakespeare's sonnets, though it is usually counterbalanced by calling attention to things that are
slightly more permanent, like, say, poems.
Poems, of course, only last as long as people read them. So, if you liked Sonnet 73, why don't you
help his other poems exist by reading some of them. And as you do, you might try to keep in mind
the themes and technique of Sonnet 73, so you can see how other poems play and experiment with
this same material, which they totally do, and just as well.

THE FACTS
Sequence: Sonnet 73 is part of the Fair Youth Sonnets
Key Themes: Ageing, mortality, enduring love, forthcoming death inspiring stronger love, seasons of life
Style: Sonnet 73 is written in iambic pentameter and follows the traditional sonnet form
He knows his lover sees him getting older but believes it makes his love stronger because he knows that he
will die soon so will appreciate him while he is there.
ANALYSIS
The sonnet is somewhat tragic in tone because it is based on wishful thinking: as I get older, I will be loved
more. However, it could be saying that even though the lover can perceive his aging, he loves him
regardless.
The tree metaphor works beautifully in this case. It is evocative of the seasons and relates to the different
stages of life.
This is reminiscent of the All the worlds a stage speech from As You Like It.
In Sonnet 18 the fair youth is famously compared to a summers day we know then that he is younger and
more vibrant than the poet and that this concerns him. Sonnet 73 contains many of the reoccurring themes in
Shakespeares work concerning the effects of time and age on physical and mental wellbeing.
The poem could also be compared to Sonnet 55 where monuments are besmeared by sluttish time. The
metaphors and imagery are pungent in this evocative example of Shakespeares mastery.

SONNET 73 INTRODUCTION
In A Nutshell
You've heard it all before: gather ye rosebuds, live like you're dying, live free, die
hard or something.

The point is, we're all quite familiar with the old clich, thank you very much. So why
read another poem about how we should love everyone we love super hard because
eventually they're going to croak (and so are we, for that matter)? Because
it's Shakespeare, that's why.

And Shakespeare has a nasty habit (okay, an awesome habit) of taking a clich and
turning it on its head. If you take Sonnet 73 on the whole, it's a poem about how
death makes us love all the more, because we know that love will one day be gone. But
if you read the first twelve lines, the poem is almost entirely about how stinkin' awful
it is to grow old and crusty and, well, die. Ah, but that's just it. In fact, the sheer
inevitability and awfulness of death is what makes us love all the stronger. So yes, we
should live free and love hard and all that cheesy, roll-your-eyes jazz. But somehow,
when Big Willy says it, we're all ears.

This classic sonnet comes to us from Shakespeare's collection ofcount 'em154

sonnets. In 1609, all those sonnets were smushed together in a book and published to
instant success. And by instant success, we mean no one read them until way after ol'
Shakey died, and even then they weren't that popular.

Luckily, over time, these tiny nuggets of swoony verse started to get their due. And
Shmoop thinks it's safe to say that by now, these are some of the most famous love
poems ever written. Maybe that's because they speak to and redefine so many of the
clichs we have come to associate with love. Or maybe it's because when it comes to
writing, Shakespeare sure knew how to put quill to parchment. Either way, we
Shmoopers are grateful the world over to have Sonnet 73 to stick in our Valentine's
Day cards. As long as the recipient doesn't mind a little death imagery with their
candy hearts.

SEASONS
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Symbol Analysis
The opening quatrain of Shakespeare's poem uses the concept of the seasons as
a metaphor for the process of growing older. Any guesses which season he picks? Well
that would depend on what time of life he wants to represent, right? As it happens,
Shakespeare uses the traditional associations of fall with death (technically, it's more
like late fall or early winter) to suggest a speaker who is in late middle age, just on the
brink of becoming old.

Lines 1-4: The first thing that probably strikes you about quatrain 1 of this
poem is its incredibly vivid imagery. Just look at the different senses that
Shakespeare brings into play here: sight ("yellow leaves," "boughs," and "birds" to
name a few), touch ("cold"), hearing (the birds that "sang"). Of course, this being
a 14-line poem, there really isn't room for the poet to stick in all sorts of details
just because he finds them pretty. In a sonnet, just like in a tiny apartment,
maximum efficiency is key. But how do you get things to do double duty when
those things are words? With metaphor, of course. Because all of the seasonal
imagery in quatrain 1 of the poem adds up to one picture of the speaker at a
certain time in his life, we're actually going to call this an extended metaphor
or conceit. Another reason we're calling it this is because, as we're about to see,
there are some other, smaller metaphors going on even inside the bigger
metaphor. Now that's what we call efficient.
Line 3: At first glance, it looks like the speaker is talking about branches of a tree
shaking in the wind. Now, here's the thing: that first glance is probably 100%
correct, but, because this is poetry, we get to have other stuff going on here at
the same time. That's because of the word "against," which makes sound like the
boughs are shaking all by themselves, instead of being shaken by the wind. When
you look at it this way, the line starts to look like (a) metaphorand (b) a case
of personification. Think about it: if the boughs are doing the shaking, and the
"cold" is a metaphor for old age, then don't you think the shaking boughs might
be standing in for the trembling limbs of an old person? This explosion of
meanings within a single line is one of the things Shakespeare is famous for.
Lines 3-4: But that isn't even all the end of quatrain 1's metaphor-frenzy. Just
check out what happens in the shift from line 3 to line 4. When line 4 rolls
 around, we learn something else about those boughsspecifically, we learn that
they aren't boughs at all, but instead are "bare ruined choirs." But how can
"boughs" be "choirs"? Easy: through metaphor. It's easy to miss the metaphor
here, of course, because in the sentence spilling over from line 3 to line 4, you
never find a word or set of words that tells you explicitly that Shakespeare
wants you to think of these two things as being the same. Instead, he just relies
on punctuation and the instincts of his readers.

TWILIGHT
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Symbol Analysis
In quatrain 2, Shakespeare introduces a whole new set of imagery, this time based on
the fading sunset at the end of a day. What makes this imagery interesting is that
Shakespeare makes it clear that the sun has already set, but there's still some light
hanging on. This strikes us at Shmoop as a pretty interesting metaphor for the
speaker's position in life: somewhere in middle age, with youth behind him, but not yet
old either.

Lines 5-8: Like quatrain 1, quatrain 2 floods our minds with a lot of
different imagery. This time it's mostly sight imagery, based on the way the sky
looks at sunset. Also, like in quatrain 1, this rich sensory material isn't just
painting pretty pictures for their own sake. Instead, it's all doing double duty as
part of a conceit for the speaker's process of growing old. The sun that has
already set probably stands for the speaker's lost youth, while the "twilight" (5)
that still remains stands for the fire of energy that is still burning inside him.
Clearly, he's not a total old fogey. Still, though, the closing images of this
 quatrain, which refer to the onset of "black night," which line 8 explicitly
compares to "Death," make it much more eerie and depressing than quatrain 1.
Line 5: By now it should be clear that what quatrain 2 is doing is treating
roughly the same ideas as quatrain 1 (though with a slightly more negative spin),
but using completely different imagery. One of the interesting ways Shakespeare
signals this link between the two quatrains is with a verbal echo at the beginning
of line 5, which reminds us of line 1. Line 5 uses the word "seest" and line 1 uses
the phrase "mayst [] behold." These two words are actually pretty much
synonyms, and they both are connected to the words "thou" and "in me." This
repetition of the same idea, but with a slight variation, is exactly what the
structure of poem as a whole is all about. We're going to see another (even closer)
echo of this idea of "seeing" in line 9, at the beginning of quatrain 3.
Line 7: In this line, to illustrate the slow, repetitive process of "night" stealing
every last bit of sunlight, Shakespeare uses the device of alliteration on the letter
B: "By and by black night doth take away." Do you think the fact that this
alliteration stops halfway through the line could be a way of acting out the idea
of the light being "take[n] away"?

FIRE
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Symbol Analysis
Quatrain 1's imagery based on the seasons makes the speaker sound pretty much
decrepit and wasted, "shak[ing] against the cold." Quatrain 2 wasn't quite such a
downer at first, but the light of the sunset is distant, the sun has already set, and
death is coming pretty relentlessly onward. What makes quatrain 3's fire image
different, we think, is that it, for the first time, shows some serious energy at the core
of the speaker, still defiantly "glowing" even though most of his fuel is gone. The
speaker's attitude here isn't exactly the "rage, rage against the dying of the light"
from Dylan Thomas's famous poem, but it's close.

Lines 9-12: Just like quatrains 1 and 2, quatrain 3 hits us up with some pretty
rich sensory imagery. Here, the speaker tells the listener that he can "see" the
"glowing" of the fire. And just as with the imagery in the previous two quatrains,
quatrain 3's description doubles as a conceit for the last bit of energy that
remains in the speaker's life, even though most of the fire (so to speak) of his
youth is already past.
Line 9: Just as line 5 contained an echo of line 1 (see "Symbols: Twilight"), line 9
contains an echo of both of them. In fact, the echo of Line 5 is so strong here
that this really counts as a parallelism. Line 5 and line 9 have exactly the same
words in the same place, except for two places where they're different. This
repetition of the same idea, but with a slight variation, is exactly what the
structure of the poem as a whole is all about.
Lines 10-11: One weird thing that's happening in quatrain 3 is
the personification in lines 10-11. The speaker has already made it clear from
his wording in line 9 that the "fire" he is talking about is a metaphor for himself,
a human being. Since we already know that the fire is a human being, it's kind of
bizarre that Shakespeare starts talking about the fire in human terms in these
lines, what with the reference to "his youth" (10) and "the death-bed whereon it
must expire." It's as if line 9's metaphor has doubled back on itself, like a snake
eating its own tail. This kind of craziness is just one of the ways that Shakespeare
loves keeping his readers on their toes

LOVE
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Symbol Analysis
The big twist that comes about in line 13 of the poem is the new theme that makes its
appearance: love. At this point in the poem, there isn't much new in the way
of imagery; instead, we get the direct communication of thought and emotion between
the speaker and his imagined listener.

Line 13: Some people might disagree about this, but we at Shmoop think that
line 13 of the poem is supposed to be a bit of a paradox. How so? Think about
what the word "This" at the beginning of the line refers to: basically everything
that has come before. If the speaker is saying that "thou perceiv'st" how he is
sliding into old age and decrepitude, you might expect the listener to become
disgusted by him and flee. So it comes as a bit of a paradoxical surprise to learn
that seeing this "makes thy love more strong." How can this be? We'll have to
wait for line 14 to find out.
Line 14: The concluding line of the poem resolves (a.k.a. explains) the paradox
introduced in the previous line: the listener will love the speaker even more now
that he is on the brink of old age, because he realizes that the speaker won't be
around forever. To emphasize this strong, positive emotion at the end of the
poem, Shakespeare uses some incredibly complicated alliteration. First of all,
you've got alliteration on L in the words "love," "leave," and "long." Then, you've
got a second alliteration on TH in the words "that" and "thou." Next, you've got
a third alliteration on W in the words "well" and "which." Also, it's worth
pointing out that "love" and "leave" both also end with a "v" sound (in
pronunciation), so that binds those two words closely together
through consonance. This interwoven texture of sounds in the last line is probably
a big part of what makes Sonnet 73 so powerful to this day.

ANALYSIS: FORM AND METER

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Shakespearean Sonnet
Shakespeare's Sonnet 73 isa Shakespearean sonnet. Easy peasy, right?

Sonnet Is as Sonnet Does

For those of you not up on the sonnet scoop, Shmoop's here to help. A sonnet's just a
fancy term for a 14-line poem written in iambic pentameterwith a rhyme scheme. If
a sonnet's Shakespearean, that usually means that it has a particular way of organizing
its ideas and rhymes across those fourteen lines. His brand of sonnet falls into four
major sections, rhyming ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. The first three sections are known
as quatrains 1-3, and the last section is known as the couplet. Because of this
organization, the Shakespearean sonnet lends itself most naturally to the poet working
out a different idea in each of the three quatrains and then summing everything up in
the couplet.

Usuallyas in Sonnet 73the three different ideas in the quatrains are actually all
variations of one central theme; in our poem, the central theme is aging. This theme
gets expressed with one metaphor (autumn leaves) in quatrain 1, another metaphor
(twilight) in quatrain 2, and a third metaphor (dwindling fire) in quatrain 3. But in
the couplet, he shakes things up a bit by introducing the theme of love (fitting for a
sonnet, don't you think?).

Shakespeare Shakes Things Up

Meter-wise, this one's all over the iambic pentameter:

That time of year thou mayst in me behold

Of course, it would be pretty boring to have every single line of your poem follow the
same rhythm. And Shakespeare was never one to be boring. So he mixes things up here,
by messing with his meter. Check out line 13, for example:
<strongThis thou perceiv'st which makes thy love more strong.<strongThat
first footthere? That's called a trochee, and it's the exact opposite of an iamb. He's
adding emphasis to this, which helps highlight the thematic connection between love
and aging in the poem.Of course, to really get a sense of the full range of Shakespeare's
rhythmical effects, try reading the poem to yourself a few times out loud (you could
even try to memorize it). You'll probably find bits of cool language rhythms coming
back into your thoughts when you least expect it.

ANALYSIS: SPEAKER
In the first quatrain of the poem, the speaker sounds really depressed. His metaphor of
the tree that has lost all its leaves makes it sound like he feels pretty hopeless about
where he is in life. The poor guy isn't completely old yet, but with his youth definitely
gonefar gone. And the next quatrain sounds pretty much the same downer note; the
sunset imagery is pretty, but the final imagery of Death "seal[ing] up all in rest"
doesn't leave much room for optimism.

The same could generally be said for quatrain 3, but here at least the speaker sounds a
bit more determined, if not exactly hopeful. Even though the fire the speaker compares
himself to is nearly burned out, it is still burning, and giving off a little bit of life and
warmth.

Finally, the concluding couplet sounds kind of determined too. The speaker
doesn't ask the listener to stand by him; he simply says, confidently, that the
listener will. No doubt. So even though the speaker never imagines that he will live on
in the afterlife, he still does have the sense that there will be the consolation of
companionship and love in this life. That is, until he finally croaks.

SONNET 73 QUESTIONS
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Bring on the tough stuff - theres not just one right answer.

1. Each of Sonnet 73's quatrains is based on a different set of imagery: the tree in
quatrain 1, the sunset in quatrain 2, and the glowing of a fire in quatrain 3. Why
do you think Shakespeare chose to use these images in this order? Could he have
used the same imagery in a different order to illustrate the same ideas?
2. Based on this poem, what do you think the relationship is between the speaker
and the person he refers to as "thou"?
3. Do the speaker's thoughts on life, aging, and death still resonate in the age of
botox and artificial life support systems? What would the speaker think of our
world if he visited it?
4. Sonnet 73 clearly deals with some very powerful emotions. Would you say that
the sonnet form takes away from or helps express these emotions?
5. Why do you think Shakespeare waited so long before revealing that Sonnet 73
was actually a love poem (i.e., through the word "love" in line 13)? Why not just
be up front about it?