Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,
The dear respose for limbs with travel tir’d;
But then begins a journey in my head
To work my mind, when body’s work’s expired:
For then my thoughts, from far where I abide,
Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,
And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,
Looking on darkness which the blind do see:
Save that my soul’s imaginary sight
Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,
Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night,
Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new.
Lo! thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind,
For thee, and for myself, no quiet find.
In plain English
He's exhausted and collapses into bed, desperate for rest. But sleep doesn't come. Instead his mind takes over where his body left off, launching into a restless journey across the distance between them.
His thoughts travel to the young man like pilgrims on a mission. He lies there with eyes forced open, staring into darkness—the kind of darkness the blind know. But his imagination conjures the young man's image out of that blackness, and it transforms the whole night into something luminous and new.
The result is a cruel symmetry: by day his body exhausts itself in work; by night his mind exhausts itself in longing. Neither finds rest. Both are spent in service to this absent person.
