Sonnet 19: When I consider how my light is spent
BY JOHN MILTON (1608-1674) 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.”
John Milton was born in 1608 and died in 1674. He lived through a
time of incredible political and religious upheaval. He was born during
the reign of King James I, served in the government of Oliver Cromwell,
and witnessed the fall of the commonwealth and the restoration of the
monarchy under King Charles II. Milton had a special gift for
languages, and wrote skillfully in Greek, Latin, French, Italian, and
Hebrew, not to mention English. As a young man, he traveled extensively
in Europe, and even met Galileo, whose fortitude under house-arrest made
a great impression on him. Milton’s life was also full of
suffering. He was widowed twice, and none of his three marriages was
particularly happy. Two of his children died in infancy. And just as he
set out on an illustrious career in politics and literature, Milton’s
eyesight began to fail. By 1652, in his mid-forties, he was completely
blind. In the marvelous sonnet Scott read, we get some insight
into how Milton thought about his own blindness and his vocation, and
the frustration he experienced as he struggled to move forward. “When I
consider how my light is spent / Ere half my days in this dark world and
wide.” He is just entering middle age – he is only halfway through his
life, and already his “light is spent,” used up. It’s interesting that
he speaks of the world itself as “dark” and “wide”; it is as though the
darkness is not in him, but around him; the world itself has fallen
dark. Inside, he is on fire to do and to accomplish, to use “that one
Talent, which is death to hide.” Milton alludes here to the
parable of the talents, and feels convicted by it. In this parable, the
landowner who gives one of his servants ten talents, another five, and
another one, and then goes on a journey. While two of the servants
invest their talents and make a profit, the third buries the master’s
money and does nothing at all with it. Milton identifies himself with
that least of the three servants. In his blindness, how is he to invest
his “one talent”? What will happen when he presents an accounting
to his Maker? Will there be wailing and grinding of teeth for him, as
for the servant in the parable? He asks the agonizing question: “Doth
God exact day-labor, light denied?” How will he fulfill his mission now
that he is blind? What is God asking of him? The poet turns for
hope to a different parable – that of the workers in the vineyard. Some
start first thing in the morning and work the whole day; others start at
noon, others in midafternoon, and some are hired when there is just an
hour left in which to work. “Doth God exact day-labor, light denied”?
And the answer, of course, is no. And then another voice, that of
“Patience,” responds to his fears. “God doth not need / Either man’s
work or his own gifts.” Rather, those “who best/ Bear his mild yoke,
they serve him best.” Patience offers a vision of God’s “kingly” state.
Thousands come and go in his service, crossing “Land and Ocean without
rest.” God’s kingdom is happening, even though the poet himself feels
powerless and useless. The most surprising line of the poem
comes at the end: “They also serve who only stand and wait.” This famous
line is Milton’s wonderful reading of the parable of the workers in the
vineyard. We typically think of that parable as a story about fairness.
Why do those who worked only one hour get the same pay as those who
worked the whole day? But Milton sees it differently. He notices a
detail in the parable that is easy to overlook. The eleventh hour
workers didn’t just show up at the eleventh hour to ask for work. They
have been waiting in the marketplace all day long, and no one has hired
them. That waiting is itself a form of service. “They also serve who
only stand and wait.” At the end of the poem, the poet still
doesn’t know the answer to the “why me” question. But he is no longer
asking it. He recognizes that God’s vision is broader and longer than
his own. In God’s time, not his own, he will be called to work in the
vineyard, to invest “that one Talent” God has given him. In the
meantime, waiting and bearing the yoke God has given him is its own form
of service.
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