Sonnet 61
Is it thy will thy image should keep open
jealousy
insomnia
absence
love
Is it thy will thy image should keep open
My heavy eyelids to the weary night?
Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken,
While shadows like to thee do mock my sight?
Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee
So far from home into my deeds to pry,
To find out shames and idle hours in me,
The scope and tenor of thy jealousy?
O, no! thy love, though much, is not so great:
It is my love that keeps mine eye awake;
Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat,
To play the watchman ever for thy sake:
For thee watch I whilst thou dost wake elsewhere,
From me far off, with others all too near.
What It Means
The young man's image haunts Shakespeare's sleep — but is it the young man himself sending it, to keep Shakespeare from sleeping? Is he watching from afar? Shakespeare knows this is projection: it's his own jealousy doing it. While he lies awake with the thought of the young man, the young man is somewhere else, far from thinking of him. The jealousy admits itself gently but clearly.
Context
Part of the Fair Youth sequence. Sonnet 61 quietly admits jealousy that earlier sonnets have dressed up in philosophical language.
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