Monday's Poetry: Shakespeare's Sonnet 73

by Pa Rock
Poetry Appreciator

Fall has landed with a big old thud in the Ozarks.  Yesterday we had a bit of sunshine, but for the most part the days have been chilly, damp, and windy.  The leaves are changing color, but they are being blown from the trees far too fast to be properly appreciated.  The squirrels are busy finding and storing food for the winter, and the groundhogs are out and about preparing for their long winter naps.  The deer, too, are busy consuming the green remains of summer and building what body fat they can before the drunken hunters begin terrorizing them and bring an end to their idyllic fall grazing.

I came across William Shakespeare's Sonnet 73 a few days ago at the Writer's Almanac.  The Bard used this particular sonnet to address to topic of aging, and part of that is accomplished with a description of the fall season.   This sonnet rings particularly true with me - a man in the autumn of life who is experiencing yet another dying of summer.

I was born in the spring and I hope that I have the good fortune to depart in that season as well - when the earth is greening and new life is beginning.  But today it is fall - and the drudge of aging is upon us.


Sonnet 73
by William Shakespeare

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 see'st 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,

Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by.

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

To love that well which thou must leave ere long.