Love Me Now (Sonnet 73)
William Shakespeare
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 ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. In me thou see'st 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 death-bed whereon it must expire, Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by. This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong, To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
Of note
In the first chapter of Seven Types of Ambiguity (1930), an influential book of criticism William Empson wrote while still a Cambridge undergraduate, he made this sonnet's "bare ruined choirs" a showcase example. He listed the many reasons ruined monastery choirs fit the picture of bare winter branches.
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TEXT PROVENANCE · First published 1609 in Shake-speares Sonnets · Text from William J. Rolfe’s Shakespeare’s Sonnets (1883), via Wikisource.
Shakespeare's Sonnets, William J. Rolfe edition (1883)
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