The opening line is an example of enjambement. It is only by continuing to the second line that the reader will find out which time of year the poet refers to. The first quatrain introduces a metaphor of the year to stand for his life. The images presented are those of winter. The trees have lost their leaves, the church is abandoned. The 'sweet birds' may refer both to the congregation, and to the birds that have migrated for the winter.
The second quatrain compresses the time metaphor further from a year to a day. The end seems nearer than in the first as it is after 'sunset fadeth'. As the night takes away the day, death will end his life. This is further emphasised by the use of the phrase 'seals up' with its connotations of the coffin.
The metaphor changes to fire in the third quatrain. Another example of enjambement is found in line nine, where it is necessary to read on in order to find out what type of fire is here, although the word 'glowing' hints at embers rather than flames. The burning of the fire creates the ashes will which extinguish the flames thus forming the 'death-bed'.
The intention of the sonnet is revealed in the closing couplet. The word 'mayst' in the opening line of the poem is an invitation for his companion to look at him. The repetition of 'In me thou see'st' focuses that observation as the images show death becoming more imminent. In the final couplet tribute is paid to the person who sees all this yet loves him still. The caesura which follows, ' This thou perceiv'st' gives more impact to what follows. The love is stronger for its awareness of the short time remaining, and the repetition of that word 'love' emphasises its importance to the sonnet.
It is generally believed that the first 126 sonnets of Shakespeare were addressed to a man. The voice of this 73rd is that of an older man addressing a younger male. The language is informal and intimate in tone, but also appreciative and trusting of his companion's affection
You May Also Find These Documents Helpful
-
A sonnet is one of the oldest forms of poetry, a classic. It follows a set of rules: fourteen lines, iambic pentameter, and end-rhyme scheme, that make a poem a sonnet which the poem “America” decides not follow strictly. Even though the poem does follow most of the rules of…
- 1184 Words
- 5 Pages
Better Essays -
In these particular poems about death, there are two different pictures painted of death. It is a clear contrast on the author’s individual point of view for such character. On both poems, the diction used to describe death is different from what I would use to describe death. It is very interesting that death is not described as an enemy, or a powerful and intimidating being. Both poems negate the mightiness of this character in different ways.…
- 631 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
I find it interesting on how the author employs the idea of the changing of seasons to describe life and death and happiness and sorrow. In the beginning it is still summer when the speaker and his lover are happily together and then it turned to winter, also a time associated with death and loneliness; his lover…
- 566 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
This poem is written in the sonnet form consisting of fourteen lines total, the first three stanza’s have four lines each and rhymes every other line while the last stanza only two lines rhyming perfectly together. The style alone impresses me since I have tried to write sonnets before and found it to be too difficult to follow the strict structural guidelines (although I do aim to master a sonnet of my own one day, maybe even in this class!).…
- 1199 Words
- 5 Pages
Good Essays -
This poem is essentially the speaker’s parting words to his love. We see that he is very conflicted about his life. Even as he looks death in the eyes he's unsure as to what comes next. He is weary of his life. He feels dead inside or perhaps he was born as a stillborn whose body had survived, adapting to the harsh world but his spirit still stuck inside the womb. He feels resentful that death has not come quickly, it was as if some force was pulling strings to keep his alive. So it's easier just to take thing into his own hand. He’s wondering if people will disdain and curse him before they mourn him. He feels calm at the end of his note, if it's in his head or head he was not sure. At the end he wholeheartedly believes that the grim reaper…
- 403 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
Unlike the dark out look of the beginning of the poem, after a little refection the speaker gains a different outlook on death. In lines 15 to 20 "Yet under reason burn a brighter fire, which the bones have always preferred. It is the story of endless good fortune. It says to…
- 869 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
Poetry sonnets, what are they? But of course they are nothing more than just ordinary poems, are they not? Many of those who do not take an interest in poems, such as myself, often do not know what a sonnet is. My interpretation of a sonnet is a poem that consists of fourteen lines and is guided by a very specific rhyme scheme or even a certain structure, which by the way varies because the numerous types of styles in which one can write a sonnet. Sonnets are very old, as a matter of fact they date back to the thirteenth century when they…
- 1264 Words
- 4 Pages
Better Essays -
A sonnet is a lyric poem of 14 lines, usually in an iambic pentameter following one or another of several set rhyme-schemes. There are two types sonnets. The first is…
- 765 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
The structure of the poem is separated into four stanzas each one being an octet. Punctuation suggests that every two lines can be read as one, the metre of the poem is iambic pentameter, each line having 5 iambs and 10 syllables when two lines are read as one. The rhyming pattern in stanza one, two and four is ababcdcd but stanza three is ababacac. The poem mainly has a regular rhyming scheme but the ‘flow’ is disrupted in stanzas one and four lines five and six, I am not sure if this was intentional.…
- 1305 Words
- 6 Pages
Good Essays -
This death is foreshadowed to be something of glory and it is revealed that perhaps there is an optimistic view of death: “music in the midst of desolation”. This suspense is justified in the fourth quatrain where it introduces the eternal existence of the memory of the fallen. Binyon not only transfigures the position of the fallen but also demotes and analyses the lives of the rest of humanity pessimistically. Many of the compliments paid to the deceased condemn the living: “Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn” implying that these will become the living’s faults to give hope on the potential of the lives of the fallen. The dead are compared to stars for two interpretations: firstly that stars are eternal: “that shall be bright when we are dust” and that stars represent hope: “starry in the time of our darkness”. This hope that was received in times of need is encouraged to be reciprocated through…
- 709 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
In the book Break Blow Burn, Camille Paglia delineates William Shakespeare’s intricate and complex poem, “Sonnet 73.” In order to thoroughly examine the poem on its deeper meaning, Paglia presents historical details about its context, analyzes formalistically and considers archetypal elements, and explains its philosophical undertones.…
- 490 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
The poem employs a style similar to that of contemporary odes, but it embodies a meditation on death, and remembrance after death. The poem is a rhyme scheme. In line forty-two “mansion” is implicitly compared to body and this is an example of metaphor, which consists that the soul resides in the body. Another example of a metaphor is “pregnant with celestial fire” it is an implicit comparison and hence constitutes. This poem’s message is a warning that darkness is within everyone. Yet this darkness has only as much power as a person allows it. Each person has the power to change humanity for the best or worse depending on his or her desires. The poem argues that the remembrance can be good and bad, and the narrator finds comfort in pondering the lives of the obscure rustics buried in the…
- 911 Words
- 4 Pages
Better Essays -
The sonnet, being one of the most traditional and recognized forms of poetry, has been used and altered in many time periods by writers to convey different messages to the audience. The strict constraints of the form have often been used to parallel the subject in the poem. Many times, the first three quatrains introduce the subject and build on one another, showing progression in the poem. The final couplet brings closure to the poem by bringing the main ideas together. On other occasions, the couplet makes a statement of irony or refutes the main idea with a counter statement. It leaves the reader with a last impression of what the author is trying to say. Shakespeare's "Sonnet 65" is one example of Shakespearian sonnet form and it works with the constraints of this structure to question how one can escape the ravages of time on love and beauty. Shakespeare shows that even the objects in nature least vulnerable to time like brass, stone, and iron are mortal and eventually are destroyed. Of course the more fragile aspects of nature will die if these things do. The final couplet gives hope and provides a solution to the dilemma of time by having the author overcome mortality with his immortal writings.…
- 1885 Words
- 8 Pages
Better Essays -
Sonnet 79 by Edmund Spenser is organized into three quatrains and a couplet. In this poem Spenser addresses his wife and tells how he does not pay close attention to outward appearances, but greatly admires a woman's internal beauty.…
- 420 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
We, the reader, witness the final moments of this dying love, noting our author suffers the same fate many of us have when cast aside by a careless lover. “Readers persisting in regarding characters as more human than substantial hypothetical beings, more like friends or neighbors” give the sonnet a more powerful, emotional reading. (Keen, 2011, p. 295). We attest to the last gasp of their love as it dies.…
- 1339 Words
- 6 Pages
Better Essays