Shakespearean Sonnet... I think it's number 73. I first heard it in an English class, freshman year at college. The professor was a slow old man and as he read it aloud it was impossible not to think how it might resonate with him personally. Through the years I've rediscovered the piece again and again & it always impacts me differently. Reading it tonight, in a difficult period of my life, it is almost suffocatingly sad.


That time of year though mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined 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 doeth 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 deathbed whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourished by.

This thou perceivest, which makes thy love most strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.