“When Yellow Leaves Do Hang” |Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73
The sonnet form is often used to portray love, faith, and death. Sonnet metrics are a powerful tool used to stress specific syllables and rhythm within a poem. Metrics are often distinct in sonnets and are used to enhance much of the poem’s content. Some of William Shakespeare’s most widely popular works are his sonnets. In “Sonnet 73,” we are given an insight into the acceptance that comes with the aging process. Using iambic pentameter and a distinct use of rhyming, we see the cycle of the aging process.
In one of the first indications of this process there is a description of a specific time of year or season, “When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang” (Shakespeare 303). This connects the changing of the seasons, from autumn to winter, as the leaves begin to die out. The frequent use of commas slows down the sentence and makes it feel as though you are slowly traveling in the cycle of seasons changing as well. This is symbolic of the aging process as we slowly over time change and decay to eventually die. This sentiment is echoed in the lines,
“In me, thou seest the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of the youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Comsum’d with that which it was nourished by” (Shakespeare 303).
Here, the use of connecting end rhymes describes this concept of age and death that comes about . Despite all of this, the tone shifts towards the end of the sonnet where we see a new spin on this cycle of aging into death. In the last two lines of the sonnet, it reads,
“This thou perceiv’st which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long” (Shakespeare 303).
Specifically, this concept of perception can be read as a token of life and the love that comes with it regardless of the end that will come. This demonstrates a new and more positive view. He is depicting the most difficult acceptance of life where it must end, yet, there is a beauty of love that becomes intertwined with it. It makes the love you give to others stronger as you see yourself getting older. Shakespeare brings this to our attention to remind the reader that love cannot be forgotten and must be followed through while you can.
Hacker, Marilyn “The Sonnet.” An Exaltation of Forms: Contemporary Poets Celebrate the Diversity of Their Art. Edited by Anne Finch and Katherine Varnes. Ann Arbor: U. of Michigan P, 2002, pp. 297–302.
Shakespeare, William. “Sonnet 73.” An Exaltation of Forms: Contemporary Poets Celebrate the Diversity of Their Art. Edited by Anne Finch and Katherine Varnes. Ann Arbor: U. of Michigan P, 2002, p. 303.
