The speaker in sonnet 73 employs three different metaphors to describe his aging process: a tree, a day, and a fire; his purpose is to emphasize the strength of love.
First Quatrain: “That time of year thou mayst in me behold”
In the first quatrain of Shakespeare Sonnet 73, the speaker addresses a beloved, remarking that she may see that he is aging. He compares his body to a tree losing its leaves: “yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang.” His hair is thinning, and the few strands he has left are turning gray with age. The gray hair that once was brown is likened to yellow leaves that once were green.
And like the tree’s branches trembling in the cold breezes of winter coming on, his own limbs shiver more easily at the change of warm to cold weather. Even his poetry is becoming “[b]are ruin’d choirs,” though it used to be filled with beautiful expression akin to the songs of “sweet birds.”
Second Quatrain: “In me thou see'st the twilight of such day”
After comparing his aging to a tree in late autumn, he then compares the aging process to a day, and he is in the “twilight of [that] day,” the time when the sun “fadeth in the west.” As the sun sinks lower, nighttime comes and brings sleep in the normal day’s activities.
But for this speaker who is approaching his last earthly days, night becomes “black night” which not only will extinguish his life, but also will “take away” “Death’s second self,” or sleep. He will not even be able to rest after black night has stolen his life.
Third Quatrain: “In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire”
In the third quatrain, the speaker again introduces a new metaphor: this time he compares his ebbing life to a fire that “on the ashes of his youth doth lie.” His youth once burned brightly, but now his flame is dwindling, and the very things that fed his youth’s flame are being consumed by the low-burning fire of old age.
The Couplet: “This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong”
Nevertheless, his beloved still offers him love and that love is even stronger. Knowing that they must part at death, which is fast approaching, motivates the beloveds to cherish their love and time together precisely because their time is short.
Other articles on Shakespeare: Who is Shakespeare?
Sonnet Commentaries: Sonnet 1, Sonnet 2, Sonnet 3, Sonnet 4, Sonnet 5, Sonnet 6, Sonnet 7, Sonnet 8, Sonnet 9, Sonnet 10, Sonnet 11, Sonnet 12, Sonnet 13, Sonnet 14, Sonnet 15, Sonnet 16, Sonnet 17, Sonnet 18, Sonnet 19, Sonnet 20, Sonnet 21, Sonnet 22, Sonnet 23, Sonnet 24, Sonnet 25, Sonnet 26, Sonnet 27, Sonnet 28, Sonnet 29, Sonnet 30, Sonnet 116, Sonnet 126, Sonnet 130, Sonnet 138
