In this sonnet, the speaker describes an alliance between his eye and his heart to keep the absent beloved close. When his eyes starve for a glimpse, they feast on a portrait and invite the heart to share the painted banquet. At other times, the heart hosts the eye, letting it browse through loving thoughts. Through this back-and-forth—picture or memory—the beloved remains present even when far away. The speaker feels a quiet, almost playful contentment: he can’t be separated from his love because his thoughts carry them wherever he goes, and if sleep dulls his mind, the portrait hangs ready to wake his heart and delight both eye and heart again. The mood is intimate and warm, mixing longing with comfort, as if love has so fully colonized the speaker’s inner life that absence becomes just another kind of nearness.
Sonnet 47: Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took — Summary
Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took, And each doth good turns now unto the other: When that mine eye is famish'd for a look, Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother, With my love's picture then my eye doth feast, And to the painted banquet bids my heart; Another time mine eye is my heart's guest, And in his thoughts of love doth share a part: So, either by thy picture or my love, Thy self away, art present still with me; For thou not farther than my thoughts canst move, And I am still with them, and they with thee; Or, if they sleep, thy picture in my sight Awakes my heart, to heart's and eye's delight.