Sonnet 73 Time Quotes

This poem doesn't waste any time in making it clear that time is the major theme. Heck, it's even the second word of the poem—which is pretty much as close to the beginning as it can go and still make sense. Time is introduced right off the bat—but what does the speaker think and feel about time? Clearly, Shakespeare doesn't waste time in this department either. Right away in lines 2 and 3, we get vivid imagery telling us that the speaker is none too pleased with the way time is passing him by.

Coming after what we've just looked at, line 4 might seem like just more of the same depressing imagery. This wouldn't be totally off the mark—it's certainly still meant to be a downer—but it would still miss the point. That's because line 4 actually introduces an important new idea: that the speaker used to be young and energetic—or at least that's what we think the reference to how the "sweet birds sang" is meant to suggest. What's more, those days of youth weren't even so long ago—as we can tell this from the word "late," which is just an old-fashioned way of saying "lately." That's just like time, isn't it? It shows up at your party, eats all your food, and then leaves without even saying "Goodbye."

These lines act out the relentless process of time, as the past (the day) becomes a memory in (the twilight still left after the sun has set), and that memory is eventually obliterated by death. The phrase "by and by," linking up by alliteration to the B sound in"black night" paints a vivid sound-picture of the steady, minute-by-minute process of time's destruction.

If lines 5-7 put the emphasis on how destruction comes on slowly and steadily, these lines point out how beings like fire (and humans) can slowly and steadily linger on, even in the face of time's destructions. So if the previous stanza highlights the past and the destructive future, these lines put the emphasis on the present.

These lines also fit into quatrain 3's pattern of emphasizing the resistance to time. This can be seen in the fact that no external force is blamed for destroying the fire; by saying that it will be "[c]onsumed with that which it was nourished by," it's as if Shakespeare's speaker is saying that the fire can perfectly well destroy itself, thank you very much. In that sense, maybe these lines could be read as a way of insulting time by denying time any credit.

The speaker of the poem ends by finding a useful lesson in the passing of time. Even if the way we get old and die totally stinks, it has one positive aspect: it makes us truly love and cherish what (and who) we have, while we have it, because it won't be around forever. As the 20th century American poet Wallace Stevens put it in his poem "Sunday Morning", "Death is the mother of beauty." Based on Sonnet 73, we think Shakespeare just might agree.