Sonnet 73 is part of a group of four sonnets, focusing in the theme of age and the loss youth. The sonnet displays several devices used by the poet to carry across its meaning, such as an interesting choice of words, punctuation and an abundance of metaphors and analogies. The second line, with its pauses, seems to recreate the action of leaves pulling off from a tree in the wind. The leaves are listed in decreasing order, but the order is jumbled. Instead of the logical "leaves, or few, or none", Shakespeare chose " leaves, or none, or few" on order to achieve a greater poetic effect with the word do, which follows. This sonnet also displays a profuse use of the letter s, used thirty one times. This could possibly be an attempt to soften the sonnet's tone, due to its sensitive subject. .
The most apparent thing in sonnet 73 is the use of metaphors, which appear in almost every line. The metaphors all refer to the same thing, but it is the choice of metaphors which is interesting. The metaphors used in sonnet help develop its theme, but their greater role is to display the speaker's feeling and state of mind in dealing with his own dissappearing youth.
The first quatraine employs the metaphor of a winter day, emphasizing the harshness and coldness of old age. The second quatraine's metaphor is that of twilight, youth as a day taken over by night, or light giving way to dark. The third quatraine introduces a different metaphor in death, youth as a dying fire. The first and second metaphors have cyclical nature, spring will always follow winter as day will follow night, it is the third metaphor that is final, death is permanent. This shift hints at the speaker's state of mind, he doesn't grasp the finality of old age and at first compares it to things that will regenerate and revive in the future. It is only in the third quatraine that the speaker realizes the true nature of old age.
