In William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73, what image represents the speaker’s fading life near the poem’s end?

In Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73, the speaker’s fading life is represented near the poem’s end by the glow of a dying fire.

The final quatrain compares the speaker to the glow that rests on the ashes of a fire after its youthful flames have been extinguished. The fire’s remaining warmth lies on the bed where it once burned, making the image both physical and emotional.

This is the sonnet’s third seasonal image. Earlier, the speaker compares himself to late autumn and then to twilight after sunset. Each comparison emphasizes aging, decline, and approaching death, while the closing couplet turns toward love: recognizing mortality can intensify affection.

The poem is often remembered for its opening seasonal image, but the dying-fire comparison is its concluding metaphor before the couplet. It should not be confused with the autumn imagery in Sonnet 18 or Sonnet 97.