Poetic Form and more

For our assignment this week we read and discussed an array of poems that consisted of different form and style. For example, Shakespeare's Sonnet 73 is formulated by a strict form while the Love Song of Alfred Prufrock is composed by free verse. Although both have different styles of writing, both poems serve a similar purpose.
In my opinion for poems to serve a good purpose, poems should vary in form and style. For example, in My Last Duchess although Browning follows iambic pentameter, when you read it aloud it does not follow that rhyme. So although it follows the standard form, when read it loses that form.
In Shakespeare's Sonnet 73, the poem is arranged in three quatrains with a rhyming couplet at the end of the poem. The rhyme scheme for this poem is in iambic pentameter following an ab,ab,cd,cd,ef,ef,gg pattern. The rhyme scheme helps to convey the three stages in the poem: seasons, days,and fire. Shakespeare begins by describing the seasons with words such as behold, yellow leaves, boughs, cold, birds sing. In the next quatrain, he describes the days. He uses words such as day, sunset fadeth, black night, death's second self to describe the characteristics of a days progression. Finally, Shakespeare ends his sonnet with a description of fire in which he incorporates the idea of youth and the progression to death. He uses words such as fire, ashes, youth, deathbed, expire, consumed, nourish to convey this idea of the ephemerality of youth and the progression to death. In this poem he urges a young man to live his life to the fullest because the end is approaching. In poetry, word choice is the agent to figuring out the theme of the poem and also the meaning, style, and form of each stanza.

Paraphrase of Sonnet 73
First quatrain:

You can find in me the best time of the year
When yellow leaves hang or none at all
On the branches that shake with the cold
Bared ruin choirs where the sweet birds sing

versus Shakespeare's Sonnet 73

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

As I mentioned before this stanza is discussing the seasons. In my "2008 edited" paraphrased prose version, I feel that it is easier to understand the main idea of the stanza. While in Shakespeare's form you get a more sophisticated word choice.