Sonnet 73 by William Shakespeare: poem analysis & meaning

Sonnet 73 the full poem, lines numbered

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.

5In 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,

10That 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.

The poem in 60 seconds

The speaker asks the listener to look closely at someone who is running out of time. Three pictures follow, each shorter and closer to the end than the last: a bare autumn tree, the last light after sunset and the embers of a fire. Then the final couplet turns all that sadness into a claim about love.

The speaker tells the listener that they can see a certain time of year in the speaker: late autumn, when yellow leaves, or none, or a few, hang on branches that shake in the cold. Those bare branches are like ruined choirs, where sweet birds sang not long ago. Next, the listener sees in the speaker the twilight that fades in the west after sunset, which black night soon takes away. Night is “Death’s second self,” sealing everything up in rest. Then the listener sees in the speaker the glow of a fire lying on the ashes of its youth, as if on a deathbed where it must go out, smothered by the remains of the fuel that once fed it. In the closing couplet, the speaker says the listener perceives all this, and it makes the listener’s love stronger, so that the listener loves well what must be left before long.

Speaker & situation

SpeakerAn aging speaker who is aware of growing old and describes it through three images. The speaker is often identified with Shakespeare, but readers disagree about how personal the sonnets are, so it is safest to treat the voice as a speaker.

Addressed toA listener called “thou,” whom the poem never names or describes. As the sonnet is usually read, the listener is the young man addressed in Sonnets 1 to 126, though Sonnet 73 itself does not say so.

OccasionThe speaker is thinking about age and about how the listener sees the speaker. No particular event is named.

ToneQuiet, sad and controlled through the three quatrains. The couplet turns warmer, though some readers also hear a note of hope or pleading in it.

Form & sound

FormShakespearean sonnet; three quatrains and a closing couplet, fourteen lines in all. Each quatrain develops one image.

MeterIambic pentameter. Line 4 packs heavy stresses together (“Bare ruin’d choirs” and “sweet birds sang”), which slows it down, and the commas in line 2 make the reader hesitate over how many leaves are left.

Rhyme schemeABAB CDCD EFEF GG: behold and cold, hang and sang, day and away, west and rest, fire and expire, lie and by, and the couplet’s strong and long.

SoundLine 7 repeats b sounds in “by and by black night,” and the s sounds of line 8 (“second self, that seals”) hush the quatrain as night falls.

StructureThe three images shrink in time: a season, then the end of a day, then a fire burning down. Each ending comes sooner and is more final than the last, and the couplet then turns from the speaker to the listener.

Line by line what each part says and does

1

Lines 1–4

Late autumn

The speaker says the listener can see in the speaker the time of year when yellow leaves, or none, or few, hang on branches shaking in the cold. These branches are “Bare ruin’d choirs,” where birds sang not long ago.

How it worksThe first image gives aging a whole season. The branches become the choir of a ruined church, with the birds as its lost singers; some readers also hear an echo of the English monasteries left in ruins after Henry VIII dissolved them.
2

Lines 5–8

Twilight

Next, the listener sees in the speaker the twilight left after sunset, fading in the west. Black night soon takes that light away, and night is “Death’s second self,” which seals everything up in rest.

How it worksThe time span shrinks from a season to the end of a single day. Calling night the double of death brings death into the poem by name for the first time.
3

Lines 9–12

The dying fire

Then the listener sees in the speaker the glow of a fire lying on the ashes of its youth. Those ashes are its deathbed, where it must go out, “Consum’d with that which it was nourish’d by.”

How it worksThe shortest time span comes last. The paradox in line 12 suggests that what once fed the speaker’s life is now what uses it up.
4

Lines 13–14

The couplet

The speaker says the listener perceives all this, and it makes the listener’s love stronger. The listener comes to love well what must be left before long.

How it worksThe poem turns from “me” to “thy love.” The couplet claims that knowing time is short makes love more intense, not less.

The turn

Lines 13–14

For twelve lines the speaker describes growing old through three images. The couplet turns to the listener, and from the fact of aging to what it does to love: knowing the speaker will soon be gone makes the listener’s love stronger.

Literary devices with line numbers

Extended metaphor

Each quatrain builds one metaphor for the speaker’s age: late autumn in lines 1–4, twilight in lines 5–8 and a dying fire in lines 9–12. Together they let the speaker approach death without naming it until “Death’s second self” in line 8.

Metaphor

In line 4, the bare branches are “Bare ruin’d choirs,” the ruined part of a church where the choir once sang, and the birds that sang there are the lost choir. The image joins the decay of nature to the loss of something people built and used.

Personification

In line 8, night is “Death’s second self,” a double of death that seals everything in rest. In lines 10 and 11, the fire has a “youth” and a “death-bed,” so its burning out mirrors a human life ending.

Paradox

Line 12 says the fire is “Consum’d with that which it was nourish’d by.” The ashes of the fuel that once fed the flame now smother it, which suggests that the life that once fed the speaker is now what wears the speaker out.

Anaphora

The second and third quatrains both open with “In me thou see’st” (lines 5 and 9), echoing “thou mayst in me behold” in line 1. The pattern ties the three images together and keeps the listener’s eyes on the speaker until line 13 shifts to “This thou perceiv’st.”

Caesura

In line 2, “When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang,” commas break the line into small pieces. The odd order, from leaves to none to few, sounds like the speaker correcting an estimate, and the pauses slow the line down.

Themes in Sonnet 73

Aging and deathLove sharpened by lossTime running out

Aging and death

The speaker never says outright that death is near, but each of the three images shows something ending. By line 8 night is “Death’s second self,” and by line 11 the fire lies on its “death-bed.”

Love sharpened by loss

The couplet claims that seeing the speaker’s decline makes the listener’s love “more strong.” Love becomes more intense when it knows it cannot last. Readers differ on whether this is a calm statement, a hope or a quiet plea.

Time running out

The images get shorter as the poem goes on: a season, the end of a day, the last glow of a fire. The structure makes time seem to speed up as the end comes closer.

Images and symbols

The autumn boughs

The branches shaking in the cold (lines 2–4) stand for a life past its prime, with the songs of youth gone.

Twilight and night

Twilight (line 5) stands for the last part of life. Night (lines 7–8) stands for death, which the poem calls “Death’s second self.”

The glowing fire

The embers of lines 9–12 stand for the life still left in the speaker, which is fading and must go out.

Patterns

Seeing. The listener is always looking: “behold” in line 1, “see’st” in lines 5 and 9, and “perceiv’st” in line 13. The poem is about how the speaker’s aging appears to someone else.

Tensions

Love vs. time. Time is taking the speaker away, yet the couplet claims this makes love stronger. The poem sets love’s wish to hold on against the certainty of loss.

The ending

How Sonnet 73 ends, explained

After twelve lines about decline, the couplet turns to the listener: “This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong, / To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.” The plain reading is that the listener sees the speaker aging, and this makes the listener love the speaker more, because the speaker will soon be gone. In that reading, “leave” means to lose or part from someone through death. The couplet is open to other readings too. The grammar also lets “that” point to something else, such as the listener’s own youth, which the listener must also leave behind, so the lines become a reminder to value what time will take. Other readers question the tone. The speaker says the love grows stronger, but the poem offers no evidence of how the listener actually feels, so the claim may be a hope, or even a gentle request, rather than a report. The form supports the turn. The quatrains shrink time from a season to an evening to the last embers of a fire, so by line 12 the end feels very close. The couplet does not deny that ending. It answers it by saying that love, faced with a short future, can grow more intense instead of fading.

“Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.”

Line 4. The bare branches become an empty church choir, joining natural decay to the loss of song and youth.

“Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.”

Line 8. Night is the double of death, and the poem names death openly for the first time.

“Consum’d with that which it was nourish’d by.”

Line 12. The paradox at the center of the fire image: the ashes of what fed the flame now smother it.

“This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong, / To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.”

Lines 13–14. The couplet turns to the listener and claims that knowing the end is near makes love stronger.

Common misreadings

MythThe poem is addressed to a woman the speaker loves.

ActuallySonnet 73 never says who “thou” is. As it is usually read, it belongs to the part of the sequence (Sonnets 1 to 126) addressed to a young man, though that link comes from the sequence as a whole, not from this poem.

MythThe three quatrains repeat the same idea three times.

ActuallyEach image is shorter and more final than the last: a season, the end of a day, a fire burning out. The repetition builds a sense of time running out.

MythThe couplet means the listener is about to walk away from the speaker.

Actually“Leave” is usually read as losing the speaker to death, not as the listener choosing to go. The couplet says the listener’s love grows stronger, not weaker.

AP practice a poetry prompt in the exam's style

In Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73, an aging speaker describes growing old through a series of images before turning to the listener in the final couplet. Read the poem carefully, then write an essay that analyzes how Shakespeare uses literary elements and techniques to convey a complex perspective on aging and love.

What a strong response notices

The three extended metaphors in lines 1–4, 5–8 and 9–12, and how each one shortens the span of time.
The ruined-church image in line 4 and the blend of natural and human loss it creates.
The personification of night as “Death’s second self” in line 8 and of the fire’s “youth” and “death-bed” in lines 10–11.
The paradox in line 12 and what it suggests about how a life uses itself up.
The turn in lines 13–14 from the speaker’s decline to the listener’s love, and whether the couplet reads as a statement or a hope.

Practice prompt written by StoryBites, not taken from a College Board exam. See the AP Literature free-response guide for how answers are scored.

Test yourself

1. What image do lines 1–4 use for the speaker’s age?

2. What does line 8 call night?

3. What smothers the fire in lines 9–12?

4. Which rhyme scheme does Sonnet 73 use?

5. According to the couplet, what does the listener’s awareness do?

Flashcards flip, self-grade, and the deck remembers what you know

tap to flip

Answer

Explain it like I’m 12

The speaker is getting old and wants the listener to notice. First, the speaker says they are like a tree in late autumn with almost no leaves left. Next, the speaker is like the last light after sunset, just before dark. Then the speaker is like a fire that has burned down to glowing ashes. Each picture shows something ending, and each ending comes sooner. At the end, the speaker says that seeing all this makes the listener’s love even stronger. People often hold on tighter to what they know they will lose soon.

Compare & connect

When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be

John Keats

Another Shakespearean sonnet about running out of time. Keats’s speaker fears dying before writing everything in mind or enjoying love, and pictures standing alone “on the shore / Of the wide world.”

Remember

Christina Rossetti

Rossetti’s speaker also looks ahead to death and thinks about the beloved left behind, but ends by saying it is better for the beloved to forget and smile than to remember and be sad.

Ozymandias

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Another sonnet about what time does. Shelley shows it wearing down a king’s statue, while Shakespeare shows it wearing down a single life.

Discussion and essay prompts:

💬 Discussion questions

What is Sonnet 73 about
What are the three metaphors in Sonnet 73
What does bare ruined choirs mean in Sonnet 73
How does Sonnet 73 explore the theme of aging and death?
How does Sonnet 73 explore the theme of love sharpened by loss?
What is the central conflict in Sonnet 73, and how does it shape the ending?

✎ Essay prompts

Analyze how William Shakespeare develops the theme of aging and death in Sonnet 73. Support your argument with specific evidence from the text.
Examine the significance of the autumn boughs in Sonnet 73. What does it represent, and how does it deepen the work’s meaning?
How does William Shakespeare use extended metaphor to shape the reader’s experience of Sonnet 73?
Some readers assume that the poem is addressed to a woman the speaker loves. Argue for or against this interpretation, using evidence from the text.

Key questions students ask

What is Sonnet 73 about
What are the three metaphors in Sonnet 73
What does bare ruined choirs mean in Sonnet 73
What does the couplet in Sonnet 73 mean
Who is Sonnet 73 addressed to
What is the rhyme scheme of Sonnet 73

Analysis is original StoryBites commentary. The poem is printed from Project Gutenberg’s modern-spelling text of Shakespeare’s Sonnets (first published in 1609). The poem is in the public domain.