Sonnet 73

SUMMARY
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.

Summary: Sonnet 73
In this poem, the speaker invokes a series of metaphors to characterize the nature of
what he perceives to be his old age. In the first quatrain, he tells the beloved that his
age is like a “time of year,” late autumn, when the leaves have almost completely fallen
from the trees, and the weather has grown cold, and the birds have left their branches.
In the second quatrain, he then says that his age is like late twilight, “As after sunset
fadeth in the west,” and the remaining light is slowly extinguished in the darkness, which
the speaker likens to “Death’s second self.” In the third quatrain, the speaker compares
himself to the glowing remnants of a fire, which lies “on the ashes of his youth”—that is,
on the ashes of the logs that once enabled it to burn—and which will soon be consumed
“by that which it was nourished by”—that is, it will be extinguished as it sinks into the
ashes, which its own burning created. In the couplet, the speaker tells the young man
that he must perceive these things, and that his love must be strengthened by the
knowledge that he will soon be parted from the speaker when the speaker, like the fire,
is extinguished by time.

READ A TRANSLATION OF SONNET 73 →

Commentary
Sonnet 73 takes up one of the most pressing issues of the first 126 sonnets, the
speaker’s anxieties regarding what he perceives to be his advanced age, and develops
the theme through a sequence of metaphors each implying something different. The
first quatrain, which employs the metaphor of the winter day, emphasizes the harshness
and emptiness of old age, with its boughs shaking against the cold and its “bare ruined
choirs” bereft of birdsong. In the second quatrain, the metaphor shifts to that of twilight,
and emphasizes not the chill of old age, but rather the gradual fading of the light of
youth, as “black night” takes away the light “by and by”. But in each of these quatrains,
with each of these metaphors, the speaker fails to confront the full scope of his problem:
both the metaphor of winter and the metaphor of twilight imply cycles, and impose
cyclical motions upon the objects of their metaphors, whereas old age is final. Winter
follows spring, but spring will follow winter just as surely; and after the twilight fades,
dawn will come again. In human life, however, the fading of warmth and light is not
cyclical; youth will not come again for the speaker. In the third quatrain, he must resign
himself to this fact. The image of the fire consumed by the ashes of its youth is
significant both for its brilliant disposition of the past—the ashes of which eventually
snuff out the fire, “consumed by that which it was nourished by”—and for the fact that
when the fire is extinguished, it can never be lit again.
In this sense, Sonnet 73 is more complex than it is often considered supposed by critics
and scholars. It is often argued that 73and sonnets like it are simply exercises in
metaphor—that they propose a number of different metaphors for the same thing, and
the metaphors essentially mean the same thing. But to make this argument is to miss
the psychological narrative contained within the choice of metaphors themselves.
Sonnet 73 is not simply a procession of interchangeable metaphors; it is the story of the
speaker slowly coming to grips with the real finality of his age and his impermanence in
time.
The couplet of this sonnet renews the speaker’s plea for the young man’s love, urging
him to “love well” that which he must soon leave. It is important to note that the couplet
could not have been spoken after the first two quatrains alone. No one loves twilight
because it will soon be night; instead they look forward to morning. But after the third
quatrain, in which the speaker makes clear the nature of his “leav[ing] ere long,” the
 couplet is possible, and can be treated as a poignant and reasonable exhortation to the
beloved.

SONNET 98

ORIGINAL TEXT MODERN TEXT

From you have I been absent in the
spring,
When proud-pied April, dressed in all his
trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in everything,
That heavy Saturn laughed and leapt with
him.
Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet
smell
Of different flow'rs in odor and in hue,
Could make me any summer’s story tell, I was away from you during the spring,
when splendid April in all its finery made
Or from their proud lap pluck them where
everything feel so young that even Saturn,
they grew.
the god of old age and gloominess,
Nor did I wonder at the lily’s white, laughed and leaped along with it. But
neither the songs of birds nor the sweet
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose; smell of all the various flowers could make
They were but sweet, but figures of me feel like it was summer or inspire me
delight, to go flower picking. I wasn’t amazed by
how white the lily was, nor did I praise the
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those. deep red of the roses. They were only
sweet, only pictures of delight, drawn in
Yet seemed it winter still, and, you
imitation of you, the archetype of spring. It
away,
seemed like it was still winter and, with
As with your shadow I with these did you away, I played with these flowers as if
play. I were playing with your reflection.

Sonnet 129
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SUMMARY SONNET 129
The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,
Enjoy’d no sooner but despised straight,
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had
Past reason hated, as a swallow’d bait
On purpose laid to make the taker mad;
Mad in pursuit and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

Summary: Sonnet 129

This complex poem grapples with the idea of sexual desire as it exists in longing,
fulfillment, and memory. (That is to say, it deals with lust as a longing for future
pleasure; with lust as it is consummated in the present; and with lust as it is
remembered after the pleasurable experience, when it becomes a source of shame.) At
the beginning of the poem, the speaker says that “lust in action”—that is, as it exists at
the consummation of the sexual act—is an “expense of spirit in a waste of shame.” He
then devotes the rest of the first quatrain to characterizing lust as it exists “till
action”—that is, before the consummation: it is “perjured, murd’rous, bloody, full of
blame / Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust.”

In the second quatrain, the speaker jumps between longing, fulfillment, and memory. No
sooner is lust “enjoyed” than it is “despised.” When lust is longing, the fulfillment of that
longing is hunted “past reason”; but as soon as it is achieved, it becomes shameful, and
is hated “past reason.” In the third quatrain, then, the speaker says that lust is mad in all
three of its forms: in pursuit and possession, it is mad, and in memory, consummation,
and longing (“had, having, and in quest to have”) it is “extreme.” While it is experienced
it might be “a bliss in proof,” but as soon as it is finished (“proved”) it becomes “a very
woe.” In longing, it is “a joy proposed,” but in memory, the pleasure it afforded is merely
“a dream.” In the couplet, the speaker says that the whole world knows these things
well; but nevertheless, none knows how to shun lust in order to avoid shame: “To shun
the heaven that leads men to this hell.”
Commentary
The situation of the speaker of this poem is that of a person who has experienced each
stage of lust, and who is therefore able to articulate the shame he now feels with
reference to his past desire and its consummation. Though the lust of this poem is not
explicitly sexual, it is described in highly carnal language—bloody, full of blame, savage,
rude, swallowed bait. The most important device of this poem is its rapid oscillation
between tenses and times; it jumps between the stages of lust almost uncontrollably,
and in so doing creates a composite picture of its subject from all sides—each tinged by
the shameful “hell” the speaker now occupies.

Another important device, and a rare one in the sonnets, is the poem’s impersonal tone.
The speaker never says outright that he is writing about his own experience; instead, he
presents the poem as an impersonal description, a catalogue of the kinds of experience
offered by lust. But the ferocity of his description belies his real, expressive purpose,
which is to rue his own recent surrender to lustful desire. (The impersonal tone is
exceedingly rare in the sonnets, and is invoked only when the speaker seeks most
defensively to deflect his words away from himself—as in Sonnet 94, where his tone of
impersonal description covers a deep-seated vulnerability.)