SONNET 61 WATCHMAN: To play the watchman ever for thy sake

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.


Mnemonic Image

WATCHMAN

Memory Passage

WAVES on the Ocean of Time crash upon the pebbled shore where stands the WATCHMAN

Idiosyncratic Abstract:

Couplet Imagery

For thee watch I, whilst thou dost wake elsewhere,
   From me far off, with others all too near

Watching theme
resonance of wake from sleep / funeral wake / wake as party


Q1

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?

Neoplatonic theme
 cf S27, S53
heavy v weary
image v shadows
the inner sight mocked by imitative shadows

Q2

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?

self-paranoia

Q3

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:

tonal drop from much to great
mine eye / mine own

the watchman
guarding the towers
watchman what of the night?

C

For thee watch I, whilst thou dost wake elsewhere,
   From me far off, with others all too near.