"Sonnet 73" by William Shakespeare

Source of the text - Shakespeare's Sonnets, Being a Reproduction in Facsimile of the First Edition, 1609, from the copy in the Malone Collection in the Bodleian Library. Oxford: at the Clarendon Press, 1905.




Sonnet 73

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 deathbed, 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.

Source of the text - Shakespeare's Sonnets, edited by Katherine Duncan-Jones.  London: The Arden Shakespeare, 1997, page 257.

TJB: Sleep is the cousin of death. Describing trees, ruins, sunsets, & sleep, he’s like, you see old age & coming death in me; & you just love me more.