This Sonnet 73 summary begins with an aging speaker. In William Shakespeare’s sonnet, the speaker tells the person he loves to look at him and see three things that are ending: late autumn, the last of twilight, and a fire burning down to ashes. Each image brings him closer to death. The closing couplet turns the sadness outward: knowing he will die soon should make his beloved’s love stronger. Read the full text of Sonnet 73 on Poetry Catalog.
Sonnet 73 Summary
Lines 1–4: autumn. The speaker says that in him you can see the time of year when only a few yellow leaves, or none, still hang on branches that “shake against the cold.” The bare branches are “Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang,” empty places where music used to be.
Lines 5–8: twilight. In him you can also see the twilight that is left after sunset. Soon “black night” will take it away. Night is “Death’s second self,” because sleep and darkness look like death.
Lines 9–12: a dying fire. Finally, he is like a fire glowing on the ashes of its own youth. The fire lies on those ashes as on a deathbed and will be “Consum’d with that which it was nourish’d by,” choked by the very fuel that once fed it.
Lines 13–14: the couplet. The beloved sees all this, and it makes their love “more strong,” because they must soon lose him.
Key Facts
- Poet: William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
- Published: 1609, in Shakespeare’s Sonnets
- Sequence: one of the sonnets traditionally read as addressed to a young man (Sonnets 1–126)
- Form: Shakespearean (English) sonnet
- Speaker: an older lover aware that his life is ending
- Tone: quiet, melancholy, tender
Themes
Aging and death. The whole poem is a meditation on growing old. Each quatrain shrinks the time scale, from a season to part of a day to the last moments of a fire, so death seems to come closer as the poem goes on.
Love made stronger by loss. The couplet argues that awareness of death makes love more intense. We value most what we know we are about to lose.
Time. Like many of Shakespeare’s sonnets, Sonnet 73 shows time as a force nobody can stop. Unlike Sonnet 18, it does not claim that poetry can defeat time.
Memory of youth. The empty choirs and the ashes of youth both recall something lively that once existed. The speaker’s past is still present, but only as ruins and embers.
Key Lines Explained
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
The odd order “or none, or few” sounds like someone correcting himself, as if he hesitates to admit how few leaves are left.
Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
The branches are compared to the choir area of a church where singers once stood. Many readers connect the image with the ruined monasteries of Shakespeare’s England. The line is one of the most admired in the sonnets.
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.
Night is death’s double. Both close everything up and bring stillness. The line makes the image of twilight darker and more direct.
Consum’d with that which it was nourish’d by.
The fire is smothered by the ash of the fuel it has already burned. In the same way, the speaker’s own life and youth seem to use him up.
This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.
“Ere long” means soon. The couplet can mean that the beloved loves the speaker more because he will die, or that the beloved should love their own youth more because it, too, will pass.
Form, Meter and Rhyme
Sonnet 73 is a Shakespearean sonnet: three quatrains and a couplet in iambic pentameter, rhyming ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. Each quatrain holds one complete metaphor, and each begins with a similar phrase (“That time of year thou mayst in me behold,” “In me thou see’st,” “In me thou see’st”), which gives the poem a steady, building structure.
The rhymes are firm: “behold” and “cold,” “day” and “away,” “fire” and “expire.” The couplet, “strong” and “long,” shifts from the speaker to the beloved and gives the poem its emotional point.
FAQ
What is the main message of Sonnet 73?
That the speaker is growing old and will soon die, and that knowing this should make the beloved love him more strongly while there is still time.
What are the three metaphors in Sonnet 73?
Late autumn, twilight after sunset, and a fire dying on its own ashes. Each stands for the speaker’s old age.
What does “Bare ruin’d choirs” mean?
The leafless branches, compared to the empty choir of a ruined church where birds once sang like choristers.
Who is Sonnet 73 addressed to?
It is usually read as part of the group of sonnets addressed to a young man, though the poem itself never names the listener.
How is Sonnet 73 different from Sonnet 18?
Sonnet 18 promises that poetry will make the beloved immortal. Sonnet 73 focuses on the speaker’s own decline and offers no escape from death.