Sonnet 1 - From fairest creatures we desire increase,

Sonnet 2 - When forty winters shall beseige thy brow,

Sonnet 3 - Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest

Sonnet 4 - Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend

Sonnet 5 - Those hours, that with gentle work did frame

Sonnet 6 - Then let not winter's ragged hand deface

Sonnet 7 - Lo! in the orient when the gracious light

Sonnet 8 - Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?

Sonnet 9 - Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye

Sonnet 10 - For shame! deny that thou bear'st love to any,

Sonnet 11 - As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou growest

Sonnet 12 - When I do count the clock that tells the time,

Sonnet 13 - O, that you were yourself! but, love, you are

Sonnet 14 - Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck;

Sonnet 15 - When I consider every thing that grows

Sonnet 16 - But wherefore do not you a mightier way

Sonnet 17 - Who will believe my verse in time to come,

Sonnet 18 - Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Sonnet 19 - Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws,

Sonnet 20 - A woman's face with Nature's own hand painted

Sonnet 21 - So is it not with me as with that Muse

Sonnet 22 - My glass shall not persuade me I am old,

Sonnet 23 - As an unperfect actor on the stage

Sonnet 24 - Mine eye hath play'd the painter and hath stell'd

Sonnet 25 - Let those who are in favour with their stars

Sonnet 26 - Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage

Sonnet 27 - Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,

Sonnet 28 - How can I then return in happy plight,

Sonnet 29 - When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,

Sonnet 30 - When to the sessions of sweet silent thought

Sonnet 31 - Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts,

Sonnet 32 - If thou survive my well-contented day,

Sonnet 33 - Full many a glorious morning have I seen

Sonnet 34 - Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,

Sonnet 35 - No more be grieved at that which thou hast done:

Sonnet 36 - Let me confess that we two must be twain,

Sonnet 37 - As a decrepit father takes delight

Sonnet 38 - How can my Muse want subject to invent,

Sonnet 39 - O, how thy worth with manners may I sing,

Sonnet 40 - Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all;

Sonnet 41 - Those petty wrongs that liberty commits,

Sonnet 42 - That thou hast her, it is not all my grief,

Sonnet 43 - When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see,

Sonnet 44 - If the dull substance of my flesh were thought,

Sonnet 45 - The other two, slight air and purging fire,

Sonnet 46 - Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war

Sonnet 47 - Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took,

Sonnet 48 - How careful was I, when I took my way,

Sonnet 49 - Against that time, if ever that time come,

Sonnet 50 - How heavy do I journey on the way,

Sonnet 51 - Thus can my love excuse the slow offence

Sonnet 52 - So am I as the rich, whose blessed key

Sonnet 53 - What is your substance, whereof are you made,

Sonnet 54 - O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem

Sonnet 55 - Not marble, nor the gilded monuments

Sonnet 56 - Sweet love, renew thy force; be it not said

Sonnet 57 - Being your slave, what should I do but tend

Sonnet 58 - That god forbid that made me first your slave,

Sonnet 59 - If there be nothing new, but that which is

Sonnet 60 - Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,

Sonnet 61 - Is it thy will thy image should keep open

Sonnet 62 - Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye

Sonnet 63 - Against my love shall be, as I am now,

Sonnet 64 - When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced

Sonnet 65 - Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,

Sonnet 66 - Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,

Sonnet 67 - Ah! wherefore with infection should he live,

Sonnet 68 - Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn,

Sonnet 69 - Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view

Sonnet 70 - That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect,

Sonnet 71 - No longer mourn for me when I am dead

Sonnet 72 - O, lest the world should task you to recite

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

Sonnet 74 - But be contented: when that fell arrest

Sonnet 75 - So are you to my thoughts as food to life,

Sonnet 76 - Why is my verse so barren of new pride,

Sonnet 77 - Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,

Sonnet 78 - So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse

Sonnet 79 - Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid,

Sonnet 80 - O, how I faint when I of you do write,

Sonnet 81 - Or I shall live your epitaph to make,

Sonnet 82 - I grant thou wert not married to my Muse

Sonnet 83 - I never saw that you did painting need

Sonnet 84 - Who is it that says most? which can say more

Sonnet 85 - My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still,

Sonnet 86 - Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,

Sonnet 87 - Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,

Sonnet 88 - When thou shalt be disposed to set me light,

Sonnet 89 - Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault,

Sonnet 90 - Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now;

Sonnet 91 - Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,

Sonnet 92 - But do thy worst to steal thyself away,

Sonnet 93 - So shall I live, supposing thou art true,

Sonnet 94 - They that have power to hurt and will do none,

Sonnet 95 - How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame

Sonnet 96 - Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness;

Sonnet 97 - How like a winter hath my absence been

Sonnet 98 - From you have I been absent in the spring,

Sonnet 99 - The forward violet thus did I chide:

Sonnet 100 - Where art thou, Muse, that thou forget'st so long

Sonnet 101 - O truant Muse, what shall be thy amends

Sonnet 102 - My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seeming;

Sonnet 103 - Alack, what poverty my Muse brings forth,

Sonnet 104 - To me, fair friend, you never can be old,

Sonnet 105 - Let not my love be call'd idolatry,

Sonnet 106 - When in the chronicle of wasted time

Sonnet 107 - Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul

Sonnet 108 - What's in the brain that ink may character

Sonnet 109 - O, never say that I was false of heart,

Sonnet 110 - Alas, 'tis true I have gone here and there

Sonnet 111 - O, for my sake do you with Fortune chide,

Sonnet 112 - Your love and pity doth the impression fill

Sonnet 113 - Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind;

Sonnet 114 - Or whether doth my mind, being crown'd with you,

Sonnet 115 - Those lines that I before have writ do lie,

Sonnet 116 - Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Sonnet 117 - Accuse me thus: that I have scanted all

Sonnet 118 - Like as, to make our appetites more keen,

Sonnet 119 - What potions have I drunk of Siren tears,

Sonnet 120 - That you were once unkind befriends me now,

Sonnet 121 - 'Tis better to be vile than vile esteem'd,

Sonnet 122 - Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain

Sonnet 123 - No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change:

Sonnet 124 - If my dear love were but the child of state,

Sonnet 125 - Were 't aught to me I bore the canopy,

Sonnet 126 - O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power

Sonnet 127 - if it were, it bore not beauty's name;

Sonnet 128 - oft, when thou, my music, music play'st,

Sonnet 129 - The expense of spirit in a waste of shame

Sonnet 130 - My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;

Sonnet 131 - Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art,

Sonnet 132 - Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me,

Sonnet 133 - Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan

Sonnet 134 - So, now I have confess'd that he is thine,

Sonnet 135 - Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy 'Will,'

Sonnet 136 - If thy soul cheque thee that I come so near,

Sonnet 137 - Thou blind fool, Love, what dost thou to mine eyes,

Sonnet 138 - When my love swears that she is made of truth

Sonnet 139 - O, call not me to justify the wrong

Sonnet 140 - Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press

Sonnet 141 - In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes,

Sonnet 142 - Love is my sin and thy dear virtue hate,

Sonnet 143 - Lo! as a careful housewife runs to catch

Sonnet 144 - Two loves I have of comfort and despair,

Sonnet 145 - Those lips that Love's own hand did make

Sonnet 146 - Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,

Sonnet 147 - My love is as a fever, longing still

Sonnet 148 - O me, what eyes hath Love put in my head,

Sonnet 149 - Canst thou, O cruel! say I love thee not,

Sonnet 150 - O, from what power hast thou this powerful might

Sonnet 151 - Love is too young to know what conscience is;

Sonnet 152 - In loving thee thou know'st I am forsworn,

Sonnet 153 - Cupid laid by his brand, and fell asleep:

Sonnet 154 - The little Love-god lying once asleep

Sonnet 73 That time of year thou mayst in me behold

That time of year thou mayst in me beholdWhen 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 seest the twilight of such dayAs 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 fireThat on the ashes of his youth doth lie,

As the death-bed whereon it must expireConsumed with that which it was nourish'd by.

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

Sonnet 73 Analysis

Poetry is a common medium for people to express love. Sonnets are almost always about love. William Shakespeare's Sonnet 73 is no exception. Senti-ments of love along with those of against and death are expressed through the use of figurative language. The poem is organized in such a way that, as it progresses, the reader feels the author approaching death as the use of carefully chosen meta-phors that give Sonnet 73 such powerful imagery. In the beginning of the poem the author uses the metaphor of autumn to stand for his progression in years. Just like the leaves change and fall from the trees, the author has changed and lost his youth. The author next states a compari-son of his aging to a sunset: In me thou seest the twilight of such day/ As after sunset fadeth in the west (lines 05-06). Here sunset represents dying. The next metaphor compares night, which occurs after sunset, to death. Which by and by black night doth take away/ Death's second self that seals up all in rest (07-08).It is important to note that the author has changed his focus from aging, to dying, to death, and narrowed his scope to the close of one day (05). In the final quatrain the author speaks of a deathbed of ashes (10-11). These ashes can be interpreted as the ashes of his youth. Those ashes had once been the fuel of the man's youth, that which provided his youthful energy. But now, they are now the place where the dying fire of his youth and strength dwindles to nothingness. It is the final couplet of Sonnet 73 that first mentions love. The entire poem is written to someone, probably a lover or a loved one. The last two lines, however, seem to appear to sum up the relationship: This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong// To love that well, which thou must leave ere long (13-14). Here the author is saying that even though he is so close to death, the lover still loves him. The author's advanced stage on life actually makes the love more strong (13), even though the lover knows that the author will not be around much longer. Although the author spends much of the sonnet speaking of aging, dying, and death, there is still an element of love. The poem addresses a lover of the author through figurative language and metaphors. The organization of the poem makes a steady progression from images of aging, to dying, to death, and ulti-mately to love. Sonnet 73 is a love poem with images of aging and death.

The speaker in sonnet 73 employs three different metaphors to describe his aging process: a tree, a day, and a fire; his purpose is to emphasize the strength of love.

First Quatrain: “That time of year thou mayst in me behold”

In the first quatrain of Shakespeare Sonnet 73, the speaker addresses a beloved, remarking that she may see that he is aging. He compares his body to a tree losing its leaves: “yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang.” His hair is thinning, and the few strands he has left are turning gray with age. The gray hair that once was brown is likened to yellow leaves that once were green.

And like the tree’s branches trembling in the cold breezes of winter coming on, his own limbs shiver more easily at the change of warm to cold weather. Even his poetry is becoming “[b]are ruin’d choirs,” though it used to be filled with beautiful expression akin to the songs of “sweet birds.”

Second Quatrain: “In me thou see'st the twilight of such day”

After comparing his aging to a tree in late autumn, he then compares the aging process to a day, and he is in the “twilight of [that] day,” the time when the sun “fadeth in the west.” As the sun sinks lower, nighttime comes and brings sleep in the normal day’s activities.

But for this speaker who is approaching his last earthly days, night becomes “black night” which not only will extinguish his life, but also will “take away” “Death’s second self,” or sleep. He will not even be able to rest after black night has stolen his life.

Third Quatrain: “In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire”

In the third quatrain, the speaker again introduces a new metaphor: this time he compares his ebbing life to a fire that “on the ashes of his youth doth lie.” His youth once burned brightly, but now his flame is dwindling, and the very things that fed his youth’s flame are being consumed by the low-burning fire of old age.

The Couplet: “This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong”

Nevertheless, his beloved still offers him love and that love is even stronger. Knowing that they must part at death, which is fast approaching, motivates the beloveds to cherish their love and time together precisely because their time is short.

SONNET LXXIII

LXXIII

1. That time of year thou mayst in me behold2. When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang3. Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,4. Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.5. In me thou see'st the twilight of such day

   The sonnet is the third in the group of four which reflect on the onset of age. It seems that it is influenced partly by lines from Ovid's Metamorphoses, in the translation by William Golding. However the verbal parallels are somewhat sparse. Shakespeare's presentation is much more individualistic and cannot easily be attributed to any one mould or

6. As after sunset fadeth in the west;7. Which by and by black night doth take away,8. Death's second self, that seals up all in rest. 9. In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire,10. That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,11. As the death-bed, whereon it must expire,12. Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.13. This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,14. To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.

influence. It is worth noting that, if the sonnet were written in 1600, Shakespeare would only have been 36, and it is quite probable that it was written before that date. An age that we would not consider to be the threshold of old age. Of course the group of four sonnets, of which this is the third, begins with a putative skirmish with death and finality, so that it is in a sense merely thematic within that group to discuss the autumn of one's years, which will shortly lead to parting and separation. We can therefore allow that it uses some poetic licence in painting a gloomy portrayal of the withered tree.

 Nevertheless it is slightly surprising that the statements are so definite and uncompromising. This is how he is now, it is not some prognostication of decay, or a brief glimpse forwards to some imaginary time. The picture is more like that of age on his death-bed, of the autumn tree, of the onset of night, of the actuality of dying. The thought seems closer to the anonymous 16th. century poem

As ye came from the holy land   Of Walsinghame Met you not with my true love   By the way as you came?

which becomes a lament for love's faithlessness as age comes on.

She hath left me here alone,   All alone, as unknown, Who sometime did me lead with herself,   And me loved as her own.

What's the cause that she leaves you alone   And a new way doth take, That sometime did love you as her own,   And her joy did you make?

I have loved her all my youth,   But now old, as you see: Love likes not the falling fruit,

   

 

 

 

 

 

From The Passionate Pilgrim.  

    Crabbed age and youth     Cannot live together:

    Youth is full of pleasaunce,     Age is full of care;

    Youth like summer morn,

  Nor the withered tree.

Some lines from The Passionate Pilgrim of 1599, which are often attributed to Shakespeare, are also relevant. (See opposite). Perhaps Shakespeare was offering this sonnet as a charm to ward off rejection. Perhaps the rejection was already evident and this is just a historical analysis of what he already knows to be the truth, a deja vue of love's forgetfulness. Or perhaps he genuinely felt that age had stolen a march on him.

    Age like winter weather;     Youth like summer brave,

    Age like winter bare.

        

 THE 1609 QUARTO VERSION

 

73

 THat time of yeeare thou maiſt in me behold, When yellow leaues,or none,or fewe doe hange

Vpon thoſe boughes which ſhake againſt the could, Bare rn'wd quiers,where late the ſweet birds ſang. In me thou ſeeſt the twi-light of ſuch day, As after Sun-ſet fadeth in the Weſt, Which by and by blacke night doth take away, Deaths ſecond ſelfe that ſeals vp all in reſt In me thou ſeeſt the glowing of ſuch fire, That on the aſhes of his youth doth lye, As the death bed,whereon it muſt expire,Conſum'd with that which it was nurriſht by.   This thou perceu'ſt,which makes thy loue more ſtrong,   To loue that well,which thou muſt

   

leaue ere long.     

 

 

  1. That time of year thou mayst in me behold 

 

 1. You may observe in me that time of life which is like the time of year when etc. The word behold, meaning 'to see or to observe', is mostly literary and not often used nowadays.

2. When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang 

 

 

 

 

 

 2. The line, by its pauses, almost re-creates the blowing away of the last resistant fading leaves by the autumn wind. Only a few stalwart ones finally remain. Cf. Coleridge The one red leaf, the last of its clan, That dances as often as dance it can. Christabel. 49-50There is a suggestion also of the faded, yellowing papers with the poet's lines written on them, as in Sonnet 17: So should my papers, yellow'd with their age. The poet is like a tree with his decaying, worn out verses being dispersed in the wind.

3. Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, 

 

 3.shake against the cold = tremble in anticipation of cold days to come; shiver in the actual cold; shake in the cold blast of the gale. against is used in the sense of 'in anticipation of, in preparation for' in Sonnets 49 and 63.

4. Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

 

   4. The emendation of Q's rn'wd quiers to ruined choirs is generally accepted. 'Choir' was the spelling adopted from the close of the 17th century. In Shakespeare's day it was quyre, quire, or quiere. The choir is the part of the church at the top, eastern end, the chancel, where the choristers stood and sang. Shakespeare uses the word seven times, only twice with this meaning.......The rich stream Of lords and ladies, having brought the queen To a prepared place in the choir, fell

off A distance from her; H8.IV.1.62-5.

andOur valour is to chase what flies; our cage We make a quire, as doth the prison'd bird, And sing our bondage freely. Cym.III.3.42-4Elsewhere the meaning is that of a group of singers, presumably choristers, as in this from 2H6: myself have limed a bush for her, And placed a quire of such enticing birds, That she will light to listen to the lays, 2H6.I.3.86-8 In Midsummer Night's Dream it is used to mean a company of friends or gossips:The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale, Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me; Then slip I from her bum, down topples she, And 'tailor' cries, and falls into a cough; And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh, And waxen in their mirth and neeze and swear MND.II.1.51-6.

Since the publication of Empson's Seven Types of Ambiguity in 1930 (the extract is given at the bottom of this page) commentators tend to agree that the imagery recalls the many ruined abbeys and churches which were left to decay after Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries. Churches were also vandalised or abandoned at various times in Elizabeth's reign. In the early years of the reign there were few parish priests, and later, after the religious settlement and with the spreading influence of European reformist ideas, churches could be seen as symbols of popery and reaction and of the old religion. Enclosures of common land, with the consequent abandonment of villages, would also have caused some churches to fall to ruin. However it is not possible to say with certainty that the image of a ruined chancel was primarily what Shakespeare had in mind. He tends not to use the word ruin(s) or ruined other than in a figurative or general sense, as in: Ruin hath led me thus to ruminate Sonnet 64

 

or in ..........The king has cured me, I humbly thank his grace; and from these shoulders, These ruin'd pillars, out of pity, taken A load would sink a navy, too much honour. H8.III.2.380-3. But the above is the only instance where the word specifically refers to a building or a part of a building, and the lines were possibly written by Fletcher. Generally Shakespeare is more interested in wreckages of human personalities - .............She once being loof'd, The noble ruin of her magic, Antony, Claps on his sea-wing, AC.III.10.18-20. (loofed = with the head of the ship turned towards the wind). Perhaps the most famous line featuring ruin is from Julius Caesar, when Antony speaks over Caesar's corpse: Thou art the ruins of the noblest man That ever lived in the tide of times. JC.III.1.257-8.

I remain unconvinced that the rich stream of suggestions listed by Empson in Seven Types of Ambiguity, (see below), which has led to much debate on this line, is entirely justified. It is a mattter of opinion whether branches of trees look very much like ruined abbeys. Readers must judge the matter for themselves. Other fleeting references in the line may be to quires of paper which contain songs and sonnets. Or to the composer William Byrd, who moved away from London in the 1590's, probably owing to his Catholicism.

5. In me thou see'st the twilight of such day

   

 

 5. of such day = of such a day of late autumn or winter as I have been describing. Or day could be a synonym for 'light', allowing the meaning to run on to the next line. 'In me you see such a time of life which is like twilight, when the daylight, after sunset, fades away in the West'.

6. As after sunset fadeth in the west;    6. See note above.

7. Which by and by black night doth    7. Which = the twilight. by and by = fairly rapidly; soon. Cf. Hamlet's

take away,

 

 

 

 

response to Polonius - I will come to my mother by and by. Ham.III.2.373. take away = As well as the meaning of 'remove' there is also the implication of doing away with, killing, destroying by underhand means. Thus Macbeth, contemplating the murder of Duncan, fears that Duncan's virtues Will plead like angels, trumpet tongued, against The deep damnation of his taking off. Mac.I.7.19-20.Night kills off the daylight, as a murderer kills his victim.

8. Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 8. Sleep is often portrayed as a second self of Death, or Death's brother. Compare:Care Charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night, Brother to Death, in silent darkness born: Samuel Daniel, Sonnets to Delia, liv. (c 1600). But in this sonnet Night takes the place of sleep as the grand slayer. Three images are possibly condensed here. That of sealing a coffin; sealing a letter, or a will, or a sentence of death, (i.e. folding it up and using sealing wax to seal it: envelopes were a later invention); covering over the eyes (seeling), as one did with tamed birds of prey. Similar imagery is used in Macbeth: ..........Come seeling Night, Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day. Mac.III.2.46-7.But the thought in Mac. is somewhat different, being concerned with Macbeth's determination to ally himself with evil forces in Nature.

9. In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire,

  9. such fire = such as is seen at twilight; such as is described in the next line.

10. That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,  

 

 10. his youth = the fire's youth. The possessive 'its' was not yet in use in Elizabethan England, so we should not assume that the word 'his' adds more to the sense of personification than if it had been 'its youth'.

11. As the death-bed, whereon it must expire, 

  11. As the death-bed - the ashes of his youth are as a death-bed; whereon it must expire = on which it, the fire, or the youth, must at last die.

12. Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by. 

   12. Consumed with that = consumed, eaten away, at the same time as; eaten away by those things (which also nourish it). Similar to the line from Sonnet I :Feeds thy light's flame with self-substantial

 

fuel. Life's progress from beginning to end is summed up in one line.

13. This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,

 

 

 13. Possibly a wish, rather than a statement of fact. 'When you perceive this, it will strengthen your love'. this presumably refers to the poet's waning life, described in the quatrains.

14. To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.

 

 

 

 14. that = that person, spirit, dream of your imagination, me, the poet. Alternatively - your youth and freshness which is doomed to the same fate. well - could include a pun on Will, the poet's name. leave = depart from, abandon; give up. A sidelong glance also at 'to come into leaf'. SB points out that the couplet could have a bawdy interpretation.

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  Empson's comment on line 4.

The fundamental situation, whether it deserves to be called ambiguous or not, is that a word or a grammatical structure is effective in several ways at once. To take a famous example, there is no pun, double syntax, or dubiety of feeling in                            Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang, but the comparison holds for many reasons; because ruined monastery choirs are places in which to sing, because they involve sitting in a row, because they are made of wood, are carved into knots and so forth, because they used to be surrounded by a sheltering building crystallised out of the likeness of a forest, and coloured with stained glass and painting like flowers and leaves, because they are now abandoned by all but the grey walls coloured like the skies of winter, because the cold and narcissistic charm suggested by choir-boys suits well with Shakespeare's feeling for the object of the Sonnets, and for various sociological and historical reasons (the protestant destruction of monasteries; fear of puritanism), which it would be hard now to trace out in their proportions; these reasons, and many more relating the simile to its place in the Sonnet, must all combine to give the line its beauty, and there is a sort of ambiguity in not knowing which of them to hold most clearly in mind. Clearly this is involved in all such richness and heightening of effect, and the machinations of ambiguity are among the very roots of poetry.