Acceptance of the waste of time in Shakespeare's Sonnet 73 and When I fear to cease to be by KeatsTime spent fearing the passage of time is a pure loss that we fear losing. Shakespeare's "Sonnet 73" and Keats's "When I fear that I may cease to be" reveal the irrationality of this fear and explore different interpretations of this theme: for Keats, death equates to an inability to achieve his potential, to accomplish what he desires. ; For Shakespeare, death (represented in the metaphors of autumn, twilight and ashes) will separate him from physical, earthly love. Through various rhetorical strategies and subtheme content, these authors ultimately address their struggle with mortality and time; their sonnets support the idea that fearing loss and death is a waste of precious time. By telescoping the different metaphors of autumn, twilight and ashes in “Sonnet 73”, Shakespeare depicts the end of times. His systematic representation of familiar concepts as symbols of the passage of time and patterns of life creates three parallel individual sonnets that come together at the poem's conclusion to form a collaborative theme (Bloom 12). Shakespeare begins with the broad season of autumns and gradually becomes more specific as he discusses twilight, a smaller frame of reference, and ultimately ashes, the most specific nonlinear metaphor of the three (Vendler 335). The first quatrain is devoted to the representation of autumn as the end of the season. These four verses are characterized by a tone of loss, emptiness and nostalgia for spring which represents the poet's youth. The "branches that tremble against the cold" that were once covered with green leaves stand alone and practically empty in the middle of the paper......a moment in the small time of the earth :/ 'This, too, will pass away. '" -Lanta Wilson Smith Work Cited Bloom, Harold. Modern Critical Interpretations: The Sonnets of William Shakespeare. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987. pp. 12-13 Elliott, Nathaniel When I'm Afraid to Cease to Be, "Poetry for Students: Volume 2, Detroit: Gale, 1998. Hirst, Wolf Z. John Keats. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1981. Ingram, WG and Theodore Redpath, Ed. “Sonnet 73,” Shakespeare's Sonnets. New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc., 1968. p. 168-169. King, Bruce. “When I am afraid of ceasing to be,” Poetry for Students: Volume 2, Detroit: Gale, 1998.Napierkowski, Marie Rose and Mary K. Ruby.Vendler, Helen. The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1997. p.. 333-336.