Sonnet LXXIII
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 ruined 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 seest 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 nourished by.
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
The images in this sonnet are simple and striking and apt: autumn, twilight, and the dying embers of a fire to symbolize one's later years. I realize others may differ, but I consider the first four lines-- autumn--to be among the best, if not the very best, in Shakespeare's sonnets.
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 ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
What are your favorite lines from Shakespeare?
What are your favorite lines from Shakespeare?
Fred,
ReplyDeleteWhere Late the Sweet Birds Sang is a SF novel by Kate Wilhem. It won the Hugo Award in 1976. Here's a Wikipedia link:
http://tinyurl.com/yeluv8p
I haven't read it, but from reading the Wikipedia article, I'm not sure that it goes with the sonnet. She probably just liked the line from it.
Cheryl,
ReplyDeleteI have read the novel; in fact I just read it again several months ago. It was the title that reminded me of the sonnet.
The novel is set in a time of environmental collapse. Humans are mostly sterile and the race is dying out. One group begins working on cloning humans as a way of ensuring the survival of the human race. The clones, though, are not 100% human and have a different way of looking at the relationship between them and the few old style humans who remain.
In a sense, it is autumn for the human race, and the question is whether there will be a spring.