quatrain rhyme together The second and fourth lines rhyme together For example in the first quatrain behold rhymes with cold and hang rhymes with sang The poem ends with a rhyming couplet where strong rhymes with long Shakespearean sonnets are generally written in iambic pentameter penta means five It means each line has five feet iambs Each foot has two syllables accented weak unstressed then strong stressed It creates a da-Dum rhythm Sonnet is also written in iambic pentameter Here is the very first line That time of year thou mayst in me behold In a Shakespearean sonnet the problem of the poem is often described in all three quatrains The final two lines provide a resolution We find this pattern in Sonnet In this poem each quatrain shows a new image to talk about aging and death The couplet gives a final message or emotional resolution Let us examine how Shakespeare developed his ideas using a sonnet form First Quatrain The Image of Autumn In the first quatrain the poet compares himself to the season of late autumn He says autumn is the time When yellow leaves or none or few do hang Autumn is the time when the leaves of trees turn yellow and fall The empty branches shake in the cold This image shows that the poet is in his old age Just like a tree that has lost most of its leaves the poet has lost his youth and strength Second Quatrain The Image of Twilight The second quatrain continues the idea The poet compares himself to twilight He says his beloved will see twilight in him In me thou see st the twilight Twilight is the time just after sunset A little light still remains Night death will come soon This image symbolizes that the poet s life is coming to an end Death will come soon Third Quatrain The Image of the Dying Fire The third quatrain shows the closest image of death Here the poet compares himself to a fire that is almost finished The fire is burning weakly on its own ashes He says his beloved will see a dying fire in him That on the ashes of his youth doth lie The fire represents the poet s life The fire will go out at any time This means the poet is in the last stage of his life He will die soon The Couplet The Resolution The poem does not end in sadness In the couplet Shakespeare provides a resolution He says when his beloved sees old age and death in him the beloved s love for him becomes stronger This thou perceiv'st which makes thy love more strong This is because the beloved knows that their time together is short The awareness of death makes love stronger So this final resolution makes it a fine Shakespearean sonnet Hence Sonnet is a beautiful Shakespearean sonnet Shakespeare uses the structure of the poem expertly to develop his idea of aging death and love The ending couplet provides a clear message true love grows deeper when we have the awareness of death