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The first four lines of "That time of year" evoke images of the late autumn, but notice that the poet does not have the speaker say directly that his physical condition and age make him resemble autumn. He draws the comparison without stating it as a comparison: You can see my own state, he says, in the coming of winter, when almost all the leaves have fallen from the trees. The speaker portrays himself indirectly by talking about the passing of the year.
The poem uses metaphor; that is, one thing is pictured as if it were something else. “That time of year” goes on to another metaphor in lines 5–8 and still another in lines 9–12, and each metaphor contributes to our understanding of the speaker’s sense of his old age and approaching death. More important, however, is the way the metaphors give us feelings, an emotional sense of the speaker’s age and of his own attitude toward aging. Through the metaphors we come to understand, appreciate, and to some extent share the increasing sense of urgency that the poem expresses.
Our emotional sense of the poem depends largely on the way each metaphor is developed and by the way each metaphor leads, with its own kind of internal logic, to another, even as later metaphors build on earlier ones.
Look back at the poem. What does each metaphor contribute? “That time of year” represents an unusually intricate use of images to organize a poem and focus its emotional impact. (490-91/837-38)
 
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