Sonnet 73 by William Shakespeare

 

That time of year thou mayst[M1]  in me behold

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang[M2] 

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang[M3] .

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 seest the glowing of such fire

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,

As the deathbed whereon it must expire

Consumed with that which it was nourished by.

This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,  

To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

In this sonnet Shakespeare continues his meditation on aging and approaching death. However, one may not be misled and think of Shakespeare as a doddering old man. It is my belief that there is more than a touch of the hyperbole in his agonizing preoccupation with his age.

In the first 12 lines of the sonnet Shakespeare presents his young friend with three images of himself as an aging man: a bleak late autumn scene, twilight, and an image of a dying fire.

The poet in the first four lines presenting the image of the bleak late autumn says, when his young friend looked at him, he would see an image of those times of the year when the leaves were yellow or have fallen, or when the trees had no leaves at all and the bare branches where the sweet birds recently sang shiver in anticipation of the cold winter to come. The term “leaves” stand for the number of years left for the poetic persona to live. The leaves are yellow: old age and sickness. The unusual reversal of “none, or few” highlights quite poignantly the fear the poetic persona feels about the very little time he feels that he has left to live. The reference to the choirs evokes an image of a ruined church. Art that is believed to be divinely inspired by many found its highest forms of expression in churches in Britain during the Renaissance. However, during the reign of Henry VIII many of the great churches that sponsored arts in Britain were ransacked and destroyed. Therefore, it is quite natural for Shakespeare who would have seen many of those ruined great churches where great music had been composed and offered to God in choric performances to see the almost leafless branches vacated by song birds as ruined church choirs. Reading between the lines, this might be an indication of his fear of losing his own ability to produce and perform art with the onset of old age. An artist who cannot produce and perform art would surely look like a leafless branch or a ruined choir vacated by its occupants. The branches vacated by song birds could also be read as a reference to those artists who used to seek the poetic persona out when his sap was green. They have left him in his old age. At the same time, this metaphor pays a complement to the receiver of the poem with the allusion that he unlike the birds that have left the tree has not left the aging poet.          

In lines 5-8, Shakespeare presents himself as twilight. He says that his friend would see in him the twilight that remains after the sunset fades in the west, which by and by is replaced by black night, the twin of death. The poet quite casually slips in a euphemism and signals to his friend that his death might not be too far off when he says that the night that comes after twilight is really “Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.”  

In lines 9-12, Shakespeare compares himself to a dying fire. He invites his friend to see in him the remains of a fire glowing feebly atop the ashes as if it lay on its own deathbed; the ashes produced by the logs would ultimately smother the fire. The term “ashes” recalls to the mind the Christian burial prayer “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust …” further cementing the idea that things born must eventually die.

The Renaissance was an age that wholeheartedly encouraged the practice of the late Classical philosophy carpe diam. It is believed that Shakespeare himself died of a fever contracted after a bout of heavy drinking with his friend Ben Jonson. So, being reduced to an old wreckage robbed of his music would be the last thing the poet would have wanted for himself. The heart-breaking reality is that the poet knows that despite his aversion to aging, there is no stopping of it: seasons come and go, day time gives in to night, and once roaring fires die when the fuel runs out.  

In the final couplet, the poet says that the young man would see all these things, and they would make his love stronger, because he loved even more what he knew he’d lose before long. The sonnet is either a declaration of faith in the strength of the relationship between Shakespeare and his young male friend or as a more cynical person would put it a wistful yearning for something to remain unchanged despite change.     

It must be said that the images Shakespeare has selected to illustrate the point that he is aging and his death might not be too far off are all full of colours that are rapidly being overtaken by darkness. Still, the colours are still there. One might say that it is the dying fire that burns brightest.

Thinking critically

1. What three metaphors does the speaker use to describe himself?  What contrast between the speaker and his beloved is implied?
2. What seasonal images do you see in this poem? How do these images contribute to the poem’s tone of loss and sadness?
3. Find the turn in this poem.
4. What does the speaker tell his beloved in the final couplet?

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 [M1]Main metaphor – late autumn

 [M2]This vagueness about the number leaves indicates his own confusion and fear about how much he had left to live

 [M3]This could be a reference to his ability to produce music/ art or those artist friends who sought his company when he was younger.