On His Blindness, Sonnet 19, or When I consider how my light is spent to which it is sometimes called, is a sonnet believed to have been written before 1664, after the poet, John Milton, had gone completely blind. The poem’s syntax is fairly complex, especially compared to contemporary poetry. Milton uses words like “yoke” and literary devices like syncope to craft his lines.
Summary
Milton’s speaker is faced with the impossibility of continuing his works. Works that are often considered to be the same as Milton’s, types of writing, or not serving God due to his blindness. He cannot continue as he had been, and he asks and receives an answer to his inner query.
Themes
Milton’s themes in ‘When I Consider How My Light Is Spent’ are quite evident from the beginning. They include the future and fear about the future, God/religion, and writing/one’s career. Milton speaks passionately throughout this piece about his newfound disability. He knows he’s going blind and worries endlessly about what that means for his future. He uses figurative language throughout the poem to express the fear that he’ll no longer be able to serve God with his writings. Midway through the poem, there’s a shift that focuses on religion and the realization that God doesn’t need Milton to write to serve him. Milton will serve him when he bears “his mild yoke.” If he lives in a godly way, that’s all God will really ask of him.
Structure and Form
‘When I Consider How My Light Is Spent’ by John Milton is a fourteen-line, traditional Miltonic sonnet. This means that the fourteen lines follow a rhyme scheme of ABBAABBACDECDE and conform to iambic pentameter. Readers familiar with sonnet forms will likely notice similarities between this format and the Petrarchan and Shakespearean Sonnet. It is separated into one octave, the first eight lines, and one sestet, the remaining six lines.
Literary Devices
Milton makes use of several literary devices in ‘When I Consider How My Light Is Spent.’ These include but are not limited to, examples of alliteration, caesurae, and enjambment. The first of these, alliteration, is a kind of repetition concerned with the use and reuse of the same consonant sounds at the beginning of multiple words. For example, “world” and “wide” in the second line as well as “serve” and “stand” in the last line.
Caesurae are seen when the poet inserts a pause, either through punctuation or meter, in the middle of a line. it can fall at the beginning, the true middle, or near the end. For example, line eight reads: “I fondly ask. But patience, to prevent”. There is another example in line twelve near the end of the poem, “Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed”.
Enjambment is a common literary device that appears at the end of lines when a phrase is cut off before its natural stopping point. For example, the transition between lines eleven and twelve and between lines eight and nine.
Analysis of When I Consider How My Light Is Spent
When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
The poem begins with the speaker’s consideration of how he has spent the years of his life, represented as his “light.” This light and being a metaphor for life are also a literal representation of Milton’s life days in which he could see. The second line expands on that, explaining that before even half of the speaker’s life had passed, he is forced to live in a world that is “dark… and wide.” Since Milton went blind at 42, he’d had the opportunity to use his writing skills, his “talents” in the employee of Oliver Cromwell. He had risen to what was, more than likely, the peak of his possible achievement, the highest position a writer in England could hope to gain. He did not know at the time that his greatest works would be written while he was blind. His “talents” come into play in the next lines, some of the trickiest in the whole piece.
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodg’d with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide,
Milton speaks of his “talent,” this talent, his skills with words and love for writing, was his entire life. His livelihood and self-worth depended on it. This word “talent” is the most important in understanding these lines. As a biblical scholar, Milton was familiar with the texts of the bible and chose to reference The Parable of Talents from Matthew 25 here. When Milton refers to the talent, he relates the loss of his ability to read and write to the servant in Matthew 25 who buries the money given to him by God in the desert rather than investing it wisely. It is “death” to Milton to have hidden, through no choice of his own in this case, his talents beneath his blindness. The next lines begin to speak to Milton’s devotion to God. He explains that his talents are still hidden even “though [his] soul [is] more bent” to serve God and present his accounts through writing. He wants nothing more than to do right by God and serve him. In this context, “account” refers to both his records in writing and money (once more connecting his dilemma to that in The Parable of Talents). He must do all he can speak for God, “lest he returning chide.” So that if God returns, he will not chide or admonish Milton for not taking advantage of the gifts that God has given him.
“Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”
I fondly ask.
At this point, Milton is finishing the sentence that he began at the beginning of the poem with the word, “When.” In short, he asks, “does God require those without light to labor?” He wants to know whether when he cannot continue his work due to his blindness, will God still require work of him.
But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need
Either man’s work or his own gifts; who bestBear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed
And post o’er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait.”
Milton continues, invoking the personification of Patience in the next line. Patience appears as a pacifying force to “prevent that murmur” The speaker would question God (as described above). Patience replies to the speaker’s internal question, and the remainder of the poem is that response.
Patience explains that God does not need special gifts or works from man, such as Milton’s writings, but loves best those who “Bear his mild yoke.” This complicated phrase references a “yoke,” or a wooden frame used to be placed around plowinganimals’ neck and shoulders. This would allow the animals to be directed around the field. Essentially, those who give over their lives to God and accept that he is in control of their fate are loved best. That is what God requires, not “gifts” or “work.”
Patience comes to the final point of the poem in the next lines.
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed
And post o’er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait.”
Patience compares God to a king, saying that his “state is kingly” with “thousands at his bidding.” In the state that is the world, these people are part of the unlimited resources of the king, God. The “post” (or move quickly) over “Land and Ocean” without pausing for rest. The poem ends with the answer to the speaker’s unasked question that those who cannot rush over land and ocean, like Milton, also serve God.
Similar Poems
Readers who enjoyed this poem should also consider looking into some of Milton’s other best-known works. These include ‘How Soon Hath Time’ and ‘On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity.’ The latter, ‘On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity,’ is also known as Nativity Ode. It was written in 1629 when Milton was 29 years old. It explores themes that include coming of age and religion. The former, ‘How Soon Hath Time,’ explores Milton’s understanding of time and how it cares nothing for humanity’s worries and wants. Some other related poems are ‘God’s Grandeur‘ by Gerard Manley Hopkins, ‘God’s World’ by Edna St. Vincent Millay, and ‘Hymn to God, My God, in My Sickness’ by John Donne.
About John Milton
John Milton was born on December 9, 1608, in London, England. He came from a middle-class family and went to school at Christ’s College Cambridge, where he originally intended to enter the clergy. After leaving university, he changed his plan and spent the next years studying independently for a career as a poet.
During the years of the English Civil War, Milton worked under Oliver Cromwell to create pamphlets advocating for religious freedom, divorce, and press freedom. He also served in Cromwell’s government as secretary for foreign languages. It was in 1651-52 that Milton became completely blind. Milton was arrested in 1660 after Charles II came to the throne and lived out the rest of his life in the country, secluded from the world, working on his epic poem, Paradise Lost. This poem would serve as his legacy and be considered among the greatest poems ever written.
In 1674 in Buckinghamshire, England, Milton died shortly after finishing Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes.
Milton’s works would inspire many poets of the future, including Percy Bysshe Shelley, William Blake, and William Wordsworth.
