what time of year thou mayst in me behold

this poem had an immediate tone of sadness to it. the fact that it compared the dying of the year to the dying individual was not unique, but nonetheless it's clever. usually shhakespeare is extreamly difficult for me to understand, but with this poem i didn't have too much trouble. most of it was written in words that we still use today which helped. the first two lines which talked about few yellow leaves refered to autumn or winter, the time when the year is coming to an end and not only the year, but everything is dying. the part about the "boughs which shake against the cold" gave me the impression that the individual is afraid of dying. in the fifth line "the twilight of such a day" seems to refer as well to the protagonist dying because his life is coming to an end. as twilight comes to the end of the day. in the eight line i thought the word "rest" was significat becuase the line refers to sleep taking over, but rest makes me think of how we write "rest in peace" on tombstones and so i relate this line to death as well. the next two lines are interesting because they relate the man's dying youth to his dying self in the present time. i am a little confused as to who the 'he' is in the tenth line. throughout the poem it seems as though the speaker in the poem is talking to someone about how they would see him. the person the speaker is referring to must be a lover as hinted in the last two lines. the speaker refers to her love becoming "more strong" and then refers back to his death when she must leave him before long.