That Time Of Year Thou Mayst In Me Behold

Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73 is the third of four poems concerned with ageing (Sonnets 71-74). It is also hailed as one of his most beautiful sonnets. The speaker in the poem suggests that his lover will love him more, the older he gets, because his physical ageing will remind him that he will die soon.

 

That Time Of Year Thou Mayst In Me Behold

 

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 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.
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.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.