Sonnet 73

Sonnet 73 again revolves around the ideas of dying youth and love. My favorite line of this sonnet is in the second quatrain and states, “Death’s second self that seals up all in rest.” I thought that this was very powerful because it uses a lot of powerful symbols and imagery to convey a powerful message. Death’s second self is sleep which is also known as the living death, implying to the reader (the young man) that each night, his beauty fades and he is one step closer to his true death. Also in that line, the phrase “seals up all in rest” represents a coffin, sealing up all of his beauty and youth. The last quatrain also uses some powerful symbols to portray this same idea. It describes a candle, using up its own energy to deplete by itself. The couplet claims that if the young man can understand this idea, then their love will be stronger but that when Shakespeare depletes like the candle, that love will be gone.