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This line talks of the eternal sleep, or death. The sun setting could also be regarded as the sun going to sleep, which plays on the last line of the quatrain, “Death’s second self, which seals upon rest.
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He plays upon the sun setting, which in some cultures was a god dying every evening (and he would be reborn every morning). Meaning, death will come, without question. Shakespeare seems to say death comes like night, dark and quiet, like a thief, stealing when we sleep. In the second quatrain, In me thou seest the twilight of such day/ As after sunset fadeth in the west/ Which by and by black nigh doth steal away/ Deaths second self, which seals upon rest. This quatrain appears to arrest the very process invoked. Upon, another glance, death is not here but coming. The transposition of “none” and “few” could also imply that a second look to the landscape, as with death. This serves as a reminder of the encroaching winter. He says, none before few in describing the leaves hanging, and reminds us of summer with the image of the bird. Shakespeare reinforces the confusion of season with the rearrangement of the natural sequence of events. However, if the whole sonnet is looked at Shakespeare seems to describe the effects of winter. If a person were to look at only this quatrain, Shakespeare seems to describe autumn, with images of yellow leaves and a place where a bird sang. He seems to be comparing his life the unspecified season, which could either be autumn or winter. The first quatrain, That time of the year thou mayst behold me/ When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang/ Upon those boughs which shake against the cold/ Bare ruin choirs where late the sweet bird sang. Sonnet 73 appears to contain multiple parallels to death and the person speaking in the poem gives the impression that he is near death and reflecting back upon life. The couplet summarizes the preceding twelve lines. Each quatrain has its own rhyme scheme, rhyming in alternating lines. It consists of three quatrains and one couplet at the end, written in iambic pentameters. Shakespeare’s Sonnet #73, published in 1609, is written in the Shakespearean or English sonnet style.