Autumn appears in the opening image of William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73.
The speaker compares himself to a time of year when only a few yellow leaves remain on branches that were once filled with leaves. This seasonal image introduces a sequence of metaphors about decline: the late day, the fading fire, and the approach of death.
The sonnet’s argument is not simply that aging is sad. The speaker says that awareness of mortality can intensify love, because the beloved recognizes that their time together is limited. Shakespeare therefore moves from natural change to psychological and emotional consequence.
Sonnet 73 belongs to Shakespeare’s sequence of 154 sonnets, first published in 1609. It is often grouped with nearby poems concerned with age, time, separation, and the speaker’s relationship with the addressed beloved. The season is autumn, not winter: the poem emphasizes late leaves and twilight before complete darkness.