As the bonds of affection between the poet and his love object undergo dramatic and thematic qualifications, so too does the poet's initial assurance that his poetry can immortalize the beauty of his beloved. Thus, in Sonnet 65 ("Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea") the speaker concludes that his words (written in black ink) might endure and keep his feelings toward his beloved from evaporating under the grinding power of time. In several of these middle sonnets, the poet acknowledges the problems of his love for the young man but also suggests that the understandable cooling of his beloved's ardor can be rekindled. In Sonnet 73 ("That time of year thou mayst in me behold"), for example, the poet anticipates that his beloved will notice that he is growing older and that he is now in the autumnal stage of life. Rather than assume that the young man will be repulsed by ongoing decay and the sense that the speaker's death is drawing nearer, the poet proclaims that this should spur his lover to embrace him more fully and urgently.