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The Poet's Craftby Stewart Ferris

William Shakespeare

Sonnet 73

English sonnet. 1609. The rhyme scheme is ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. What follows is a reading of the pauses, the line-breaks, and the sounds that return — not a life of the poet.

That time of year thou mayst in me beholdWhen yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hangUpon those boughs which shake against the cold,Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.In me thou see’st the twilight of such dayAs 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 fireThat on the ashes of his youth doth lie,As the death-bed whereon it must expire,Consumed with that which it was nourished by.This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
Sonnet 73 — William Shakespeare. Public domain.

Sonnet 73 is a lesson in how a rhyme scheme can be an argument. Three quatrains, each opening with a version of “in me thou see’st,” offer the beloved three pictures of the speaker’s age: late autumn, twilight, a dying fire. The couplet does not add a fourth picture. It tells the beloved what to do with the three they have already been shown.

The first quatrain is almost entirely enjambed until the period after “sang.” “Behold” runs into “When,” “hang” runs into “Upon,” and the only pause that feels like a stop is the inventory inside line 2: “yellow leaves, or none, or few.” Those commas are caesuras. They thin the tree in real time. The line does not say “few leaves.” It corrects itself downward, as if the speaker is looking again.

“Bare ruined choirs” is the line-end that earns its stress. Everything before it has been botanical. The choirs turn the boughs into a dissolved monastery, and the rhyme “cold / sang” is not a chime of comfort. “Sang” is in the past tense. The sweet birds are the rhyme’s memory, not its present.

Quatrain two is more end-stopped. Each line can stand as a clause, and the caesura after “west” lets the sunset finish before “black night” takes it. “Death’s second self” is an apposition, a pause that renames night while the line is still open. Shakespeare does not enjamb the idea of death. He sets it down and lets it seal the quatrain, which is what the metaphor claims night does.

The third quatrain returns to enjambment because the fire is a process, not a view. “Lie” falls into “As the death-bed,” and “expire” falls into “Consumed.” The rhyme “lie / by” is quiet. The nourishment and the consumption are the same fuel. That is the technical point of the scheme: ABAB asks the ear to wait one line before the likeness arrives, which is exactly how these metaphors behave. You see the fire, then you see what the fire is doing.

The couplet changes the pronoun’s job. Until now “thou” has been a witness. In the couplet, “thou” has to act. “Strong / long” is the only rhyme that looks forward. A couplet after three quatrains feels like a lock. Shakespeare uses that click to make love a response to information, not a mood. The beloved loves more because they have perceived the limit.

The joins

  • Caesura. The commas in “yellow leaves, or none, or few” are the poem’s best pause. They enact scarcity. When you revise, ask whether a comma is punctuation or a change of mind.
  • Enjambment. Quatrain one runs; quatrain two stops. The difference is the lesson. Autumn is a process of looking; twilight is a sequence of facts. Match the syntax to the speed of the image.
  • Rhyme. ABAB keeps the likeness one line away, so the rhyme can complete a metaphor rather than decorate a line. The couplet GG is reserved for the instruction.

More readings are kept in the weekly archive. The craft lesson closest to this poem’s method is Technicalities.