Sonnet 73

  This sonnet focuses more on the speaker.  The sonnet is eerie and is keeping death very present in its lines. The first quatrain refers to autumn.  Shakespeare often used the seasons to describe life.  Autumn precedes winter which is death, and so autumn refers to aging.  Lines two and three create an image of trees that are losing their leaves.  The speaker describes yellow leaves just hanging on the trees and the boughs "shake" in the cold.  The trees are personified as shaking to bring gusts of wind into the image of an autumn day.  In the fourth line, "bare ruined choirs" could be referring to the many churches and cathedrals which were decaying during Shakespeare's time.  Henry V111 dissolved many churches.  In the first line of the second quatrain, the speaker refers to himself as the "twilight of such day."  Here, the speaker is referring to the autumnal image he creates in the first quatrain to twilight.  Twilight, which is the eve of night.  The speaker goes on the say that night brings "Death's second self," or sleep.  Also in that line is the word "seals."  In context, seals can have other meanings than its primary meaning in the sonnet.  "Seals" can also refer to sealing a coffin or a will.  The first line of the third quatrain is similar to the first line of the second quatrain in that they both begin with "In me thou seest..." which directly refers to the speaker.  The different in this line is that it ends with "the glowing of such fire."  This introduces the third idea of a dying fire.  What is interesting about this quatrain is that is can be interpreted as a metaphor comparing a candle to aging.  This is especially apparent in the last line of the third quatrain.  A candle consumes itself until it burns out.  The couplet of the sonnet states that because of life's fleeting quantity, the speaker tells the subject to love what will be lost.  It is very possible that the speaker could be referring to himself.