When I look at the trees this time of year, I can't help but recite the beginning of this sonnet. This year, I memorized the rest of it, so I can say the whole thing to Freya while we walk in the woods. Lucky dog, eh? Just kidding, but I do love this sonnet.
Sonnet 73
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or few, or none do hang
Upon the boughs that 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 see’st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed wheron it must expire
Consumed by that which it was nourished by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong
To love that well which thou must leave ‘ere long.
I particularly like the line "Consumed by that which it was nourished by." It reminds me of Tennyson in "Ulysses":
How dull it is to pause, to make an end.
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains; but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence...
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains; but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence...
