On His Blindness

By John Milton

Introduction

In February of 1652, the English poet John Milton went completely blind. Many great artists have suffered blindness, but the twist in Milton's case is that he went blind before he wrote his best works, including the immortal epic poem Paradise Lost. Milton had written a few great poems before 1652, such as the elegy "Lycidas." But he was not a famous poet by this point.

In fact, Milton was more famous as a servant of the government of Oliver Cromwell, the "Lord Protector" of England during the period between the kings Charles I and Charles II. Without going too far into English history, we'll just point out that from the years 1649 to 1660, there was no monarchy. Charles I had been beheaded, and Cromwell turned the government into a republican commonwealth, which is to say, not a monarchy. Milton was a Puritan, and so was Cromwell. The 17th century Puritans believed that the Church of England needed to be reformed to create more distance from the elaborate ceremonies and power structures of Catholicism and the Pope. They wanted to boil Christianity down to the basics of "pure" piety and morality. Thus, Milton was a big-time supporter of the commonwealth government, and he used his incredible powers of persuasion on behalf of Puritan rule in essays published in pamphlets.

But, like we said, Milton went blind a few years after the Puritans gained power, and in this sonnet he worries about how he can serve God even with this condition. Many scholars date the poem to 1655 (source). When reading this poem, you have to keep in mind that Milton is not just using false modesty here, because he had not written the works that would cement his reputation. Hearing the author of Paradise Lost say, "I haven't accomplished all the stuff I wanted to!" would be like Tiger Woods complaining that his life was wasted because he had never won the world Sudoku championship. But that's not what Milton is doing in this sonnet – his "talent" at this point was still unproven.

Milton's blindness has become something of a myth. Some people think that Milton dictated all of Paradise Lost to his three daughters. And at least one scholar has suggested that he drove his daughters out of his house by making them read to him in languages they couldn't even understand.

 

On His Blindness: Text of the Poem 

 

When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my Soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide;
"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts; who best
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."

 

"On His Blindness": Summary

The first seven and a half lines of this poem are one big, long, confusing sentence. Here's our summary: "When I think of how I have lost my vision even before middle age, and how I am unable to use my best talent to serve God, I want to ask if God requires his servants to work for him even if they don't have vision."

But before he can speak up, a figure called Patience answers his question. Patience is like, "You think God needs your work? No, man. His best servants are the ones who bear life's burden the best. He already has thousands of people running around across land and sea to serve him. You can just stand right there and wait on him, and that's enough."

Lines 1-2

When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,

• The speaker thinks about how all of his light has been used up ("spent") before even half his life is over. As a man without light, he now lives in a world that is both "dark and wide."
• The first word of the poem, "When," gives us an idea of the structure of the sentence that will follow. The structure is, "When this happens, that happens." As in, "When I broke the glass, I had to find a broom to sweep it up."
• But be careful – the second part of the sentence doesn't come until lines 7 and 8. Milton's audience was more used to reading dense and complicated sentences, so you'll want to take the first seven lines slowly.
• Most readers believe that the poem is clearly about Milton's blindness, but the poem never directly refers to blindness or even vision. Instead, we think that "light" is a metaphor for vision.
• The metaphor is complicated. The speaker says that his light can be "spent," and this word suggests that he is thinking of something like an oil lamp. The light is "spent" when the oil in the lamp runs out. To make a contemporary comparison, it would be like someone comparing his vision to a flashlight that runs out of batteries before it is supposed to. Milton is suggesting that he got a bad deal.
• The word "spent" also makes us think of money. Milton is reflecting on how he has used or "spent" his vision, now that it is gone. Has he used it wisely, or did he fritter it away because he thought it would never run out?
• The word "ere" means "before." How does Milton know that he became blind before his life was halfway over? For this to be true, wouldn't he have to be some kind of psychic who knew when he was going to die? The usual explanation of this line is that Milton guesses roughly how long he will live. Milton went completely blind at the age of 42.
• Finally, calling the world "dark and wide" makes it sound like a scary place, doesn't it? Interestingly, Milton makes it seem as if the world has run out of light, rather than growing dark because of any blindness on his part.

Lines 3-4

And that one Talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, […]

• These lines are the trickiest in the entire poem, because they appear to be simpler then they are.
• The key word is "talent." You probably read "talent" and think of skills like throwing a perfect spiral or being a piano prodigy. But there's a double meaning intended for people who know history or Biblical scripture. In the ancient world, a "talent" was also a standard of weight used to measure money, just as a "pound" is a measure of both weight and currency.
• You can read Matthew 25 (it's short), but here's our brief summary of "The Parable of Talents." A lord gives three of his servants some money ("talents") to hold on to when he leaves for a trip. Two of the servants use the money to gain more money for their master. (In contemporary language, we'd call this 'investment.') But the third servant just buries the money, the ancient equivalent of hiding it under your mattress. When the lord returns, he's happy with the first two servants and gives them more responsibilities, but furious with the third servant. He exiles the third servant into the "darkness," which is the equivalent of "death."
• When Milton says that talent is "death to hide," he is referring to the money in the Biblical story and also to his own "talent," in the sense of a skill or trade.
• There is no way to tell what specific talent he means, but our guess would be his intelligence and his writing and reading skills, which he had used in service of Oliver Cromwell's government. This "talent" is "lodged" or buried within the speaker just like the money in the story. It cannot be used to make greater profit.

Lines 4-6

[…] though my Soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide;

• The speaker has just told us that his talent is as useless as money buried in the desert, but now he says that his uselessness has nothing to do with a lack of will. To the contrary, his soul desires (is "bent") to use his skills in the service of his "Maker," God.
• When he is faced with God, he wants to have a record of accomplishment to show Him.
• God is being compared with the lord from the "Parable of the Talents" in Matthew 25. When God "returns" to him like the master in the parable, the speaker wants to show that he has used his talents profitably.
• The word "account" here means both" story" and "a record of activities with money."
• If the speaker turns out to have wasted his profits, he worries that God will scold or "chide" him. And if God is anything like the lord from the parable, the speaker could get cast into a darkness even more fearful than the one created by his blindness.

Lines 7-8

"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask. […]

• It has taken the speaker six lines to get through the part of the sentence that begins "When." Now he goes on to say what happens "when" he thinks about all the stuff he has described above. Namely, he wonders if God demands that people undertake hard, physical work, or "day-labour," when they don't have any light.
• The speaker doesn't have any light because he's blind, but in Milton's metaphor he compares this condition to having to do work at night that you would normally do during the day – like, say, building a house or plowing a field.
• The word "exact" means something like "charge," "claim," or "demand." You can "exact" a toll or a fee, for example. So the speaker wants to know if God demands work as a kind of payment that is due to Him.
• The first section of the poem is completed by the words "I fondly ask." The word "fondly" means "foolishly," not "lovingly." The speaker accuses himself of being a idiot for even thinking this question.
• Fortunately, "patience" steps in to prevent his foolishness. More on that in the next section.

Lines 8-10

[…] But patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts; who best

• "Patience" to the rescue! Patience is personified as someone who can talk sense into the speaker. Patience is often personified in Christian art because of its role in helping one to achieve important virtues like courage and wisdom.
• The speaker is about to "murmur" his foolish question about whether God would be so cruel as to make impossible demands of work, but then his patience steps in to stop him. The rest of the poem is the reply made by patience.
• First, patience points out that God does not need anything. God is complete and perfect. He doesn't need work or talents ("gifts") of any kind.

Line 11

Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. […]

• Patience now scores its second point in the rebuttal to the speaker. Patience argues that those people are the best servants of God who allow their fates to be linked with and controlled by God, as if they were wearing a yoke.
• Essentially, this means accepting things as they come, especially suffering and misfortune.
• A "yoke" is a wood frame that is placed around the necks of farm animals, like oxen, so that they can be directed.
• Patience doesn't want to make God sound like a slave driver, so God's yoke is called "mild," or not-that-bad. It's not how much you have to show for your time on earth that counts, it's how you handle your submission to God.

Lines 11-14

[…] 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."

• The final point made by patience is that God is like a king, not a lord, so the "Parable of the Talents" does not strictly apply.
• Lords need everyone on their estates to work for them; they usually don't have the resources to spend on keeping servants just to stand around and wait on them. Kings, on the other hand, have unlimited resources, especially if they control a "state" as large as the entire earth.
• With His kingly status, God has plenty of minions to do His "bidding" by rushing from place to place – that is, doing things that require light and vision. It doesn't make a difference whether one more person fulfills the role or not.
• But kings also have people who "wait" on them, who stand in a state of readiness until their action is needed.
• To summarize, we believe that the sentence, "His state is kingly," is meant to contrast with the "lordly" state of the master of the Biblical parable in Matthew 25.
• This being Milton, of course, "wait" can also have the meaning of waiting for something to happen, as in, "I waited for the bus."
• What would the speaker be waiting for? The Second Coming of Jesus? The end of history? We don't know because the poem only suggests this meaning oh-so-vaguely.
• The word "post" here just means "to travel quickly." That's why the mail is often referred to as the "post," because you're supposed to travel quickly to deliver it.
• The poem ends with a vindication of the speaker's passivity, which has been forced on him by his blindness.

 

Theme of Guilt and Blame

 

The speaker's mind is a big ball of guilt and confusion. He takes pride in his vast intelligence, but worries that he failed to use his "light" when he had it. You can imagine him saying, "How could I have known my vision was going to run out?!" His soul "bends" toward service of God like a flower bends toward the sun, but he is no longer fit for the kinds of intensive work that he might have done. He hopes that God does not blame him like the angry lord from the "Parable of the Talents" in the Bible.

 

Theme of Dreams, Hopes, and Plans

 

Before going blind, the speaker has high hopes for what he might accomplish in the future. He says he would have been a supremely useful servant of God. But we can't know if his motives are truly selfless, or if he is an ambitious guy who now struggles to come to terms with a personal upheaval. As he looks to the future, he compares his situation to the third servant from the New Testament "Parable of the Talents" in Matthew 25. Because he has not increased his master's wealth, this servant is cast into the darkness. Considering that the speaker already feels he lives in the darkness, what further punishment does he expect? At the end of the poem, patience gives him a new plan: he should wait until God calls on him to serve.

 

Theme of Principles

 

We've all heard the homespun wisdom "Patience is a virtue," which sounds almost mystical but is really like saying, "Blue is a color." The more interesting question is, what's a virtue? A virtue is a character trait that helps you achieve some desired good or outcome. Virtues are central to Christian theology. The speaker desires to serve God, but his impatience and sense of wounded pride threaten to get in his way by leading him to rashly criticize his "Maker." The virtue of patience helps him to remember that it's not all about him. Just because he thinks he has something to offer doesn't mean that God needs him to act right away.

 

Theme of Religion

 

John Milton was a Puritan who supported Oliver Cromwell's republican commonwealth after the execution of King Charles I of England. During this period, politics and religion were tied closely together, so that being "useful" to the government meant being "useful" to God, at least for Milton. The poem displays Milton's encyclopedic knowledge of the Bible but also his reforming instincts. Milton is not afraid to challenge the supposed moral of the New Testament "Parable of the Talents" by pointing out the difference between God and the lord from the story. The sonnet gives expression to intense religious emotions, but its rational and rhetorical qualities are equally important.