Youth loves life yet "nobody loves life like him that's growing old." These wise words spoken by Sophocles helps to convey the idea that aging brings forth an appreciation of youth while containing a realistic view on man's inescapable journey to death. Aging affects relationships in various ways; it could be a source of strength or an uncomfortable fault that one must deal with. Shakespeare's "Sonnet 73" and "Sonnet 138" deal with similar relationships between old and young, where in "Sonnet 73" aging results in strengthening a love and "Sonnet138" expresses aging as a type of weakness. Robert Burns' "John Anderson, My Jo" deals with the relationship between an elderly couple accepting the aging process and using aging as a preservation of their love. All three works reveal distinct relationships dealing with the aging of a loved one; aging is viewed with acceptance, ultimately creating a stronger bond between the lovers while reinforcing the fading aspect of youth.
             The use of natural metaphors to support the powerful imagery helps to convey the decay of youth and serves to emphasize the temporariness of youth. In "John Anderson, My Jo" the simplistic connections between John Anderson's hair once being "like the raven" (3) and later becoming white "like snow" (6) reveals a change in the physical attributes of this man, an important characterization of aging. The love of this couple surpasses the physical which can be seen in the speaker's reaction to the changes found in her husband. Although he is not the same person he once is, physically, she still desires to stagger down the mountain "hand in hand" (14). The depiction of the death of youth is much more powerful in Shakespeare's "Sonnet 73" due to the use of more complex metaphors. The speaker is addressing the fact that he is aging, something that is becoming more apparent to his younger lover. In the first stanza the speaker is aging as "when yellow leaves, or none, or few, ...