Dear Readers, I’m still a bit under the weather – the throat infection that I picked up during my travels is not a shedload of fun. I’m gradually improving, but looking out of the office window at the Amelanchior opposite has put me in mind of this particularly cheery Shakespeare sonnet, so I thought I’d share it, even though it’s not Thursday, when I usually post my poems.  Addressed to the ‘Fair Youth’ who has caused so many critics and historians to scratch their heads, it always seems to me to lay it all on a bit thick in a bid for sympathy, but see what you think. Some critics have suggested that it’s also all a bit cliched, but the problem with Shakespeare is that so many of his phrases have dropped into common usage, and we forget how new-minted they probably sounded at the time. Anyhow, enjoy!

Sonnet 73: That time of year thou mayst in me behold

By 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 see’st 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.