• Sonnets 71-74 – Shakespeare is

preoccupied with the passing of

time and change that overtakes
him.
Introduction • Sonnet 73 is intensely personal
and marks the poet’s personal
depression, under the ruinous
effect of time, only to be relieved
by the thought of his dear love.
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.
Late autumn or early winter.
You (the friend) may behold in me (the poet)
that time of year when none or few yellow
leaves hang upon those boughs which shake
against the cold wintry wind.
The sweet birds sang late (earlier) on them
but these are (now) as bare as ruined
choirs (cathedrals).
That time of year thou mayst in
me behold
When yellow leaves, or none,
or few, do hang
• Bare ruin’d choirs- the empty cathedrals in
Upon those boughs a state of utter ruins. The branches of the
which shake against the cold, trees look as desolate and decadent as the
big empty cathedrals which are in a state
Bare ruin’d choirs, where late of utter ruins.
the sweet birds sang.
• The Historic background to this image –
during Shakespeare’s period, Henry VIII
destroyed a number of monasteries in a
wave of hatred of the Roman Catholic
church.

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.
Metaphor - Nature of Old age
The narrator tells the beloved that his age is like a “time of year,”
late autumn, when the leaves have almost completely fallen
from the trees, and the weather has grown cold, and the birds
have left their branches.
This metaphor emphasizes the harshness and emptiness of old
age - “boughs […] shake against the cold” and “Bare ruin’d
choirs”.
The lyrical voice compares his aging process to nature, and,
particularly, to autumn.
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.

You may see in me the

The sun fades and night
twilight of such a day as fade
Compares the process of approaches - the gradual
in the west after sunset and
aging to the twilight - fading of youth, as the
which black night, death’s
Metaphor twilight shifts to night “by
second self, seals up and
and by”.
takes away.

Death is directly related to

this particular time of the
day and it is described as the
one that brings eternal rest.
 • The end of a cycle.

Quatrain • In the first four lines, this cycle is

represented by the different
natural seasons
1&2 • In lines 5-8, the cycle is
represented by the moments of
the day.
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.

The glowing remnants of a

The speaker compares himself
to the glowing remnants of a
fire - Metaphor
There are remains of fire in
fire, which lies “on the ashes
him/her - fire represents
of his youth”—that is, on the
youth, and, according to the
ashes of the logs that once
lyrical voice, it will soon be
enabled it to burn—and which
consumed.
will soon be consumed

“by that which it was

nourished by”—it will be
extinguished as it sinks into
the ashes, which its own
burning created.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

• 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.