Sonnet XLII

Sonnet XLII

When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see,
For all the day they view things unrespected;
But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,
And darkly bright, are bright in dark directed.
Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright,
How would thy shadow's form form happy show
To the clear day with thy much clearer light,
When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so! 
How would, I say, mine eyes be blessed made
By looking on thee in the living day,
When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade
Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay!
   All days are nights to see till I see thee,
   And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.

The poet is analyzing his own disturbed mind and the dark brightness that love has cast upon it after the torment and anguish of betrayal. He uses language of shadows and forms of bleak shapes to cast an air of despair. The theme of shadow helps to push the medium of bleak theme throughout the poem and vasten the overall idea of vapidness that is eluded throughout this piece. In this sonnet the shadows seem to flicker and in the end one enters a dream world which is as real to the poet as the world of absence from which he strives to escape. The days become nights and nights days, and the natural order of things is inverted and confounded.