Joanne: Hello, I'm Joanne Diaz. Abram: And I'm Abram Van Engen. Joanne: And this is Poetry for All. Abram: In this podcast, we read a poem, discuss it, learn from it, and then read it one more time. Joanne: Today, we're taking a close look at John Milton's 17th century sonnet “When I consider how my light is spent”. And before we read this poem aloud, we want to provide just a little bit of context about John Milton and some of the themes that crop up in this poem. John Milton was a poet of the 17th century. He's born in 1608. He dies in 1674. We don't know exactly when he wrote this poem, but historians have suggested that he was almost completely blind by 1652, when he was about 46 years old or so, and it was around that time that he wrote this poem. This is a poem of disappointment, it's a poem of disability, it's a poem about falling short. This is a poem in which, by the time John Milton writes it, he is blind. And he's trying to understand what he can possibly do with his limitations. So with that in mind, Abram, would you be willing to read this poem? Abram: Absolutely. [to read the poem, visit this link: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44750/sonnet-19-when-i-consider-how-my-light-is-spent] Joanne: This is a beautiful poem, but also incredibly complex, and one that doesn't feel accessible the first time I hear it. Abram, can you start us with just the first sentence so that we can start to understand what Milton is trying to express and negotiate in this poem? Abram: Yeah, let's walk through this poem. So the first line, “when I consider how my light is spent”, literally he's just saying, I mean when I think about the fact that I am now blind. These are the things that then occur to me and from there the poem takes off. So Joanne after that sort of opening line of these are the thoughts that occur to me, what are the thoughts that occur to him as he goes on? Joanne: Well, it's terrifying. He identifies himself right away as a middle aged person. “When I consider how my light is spent, / Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide”. That's an amazing phrase to me because he could have just written in this big, dark world, but he says “in this dark world and wide”, the sense that his blindness has transformed his sense of space, that the world feels so much bigger without limits on it and there's something terrifying about that and then he says this “ 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.” Whoa, that's a long sentence. There's so much to that. Can you help us through that, please? Abram: So the reference to a talent there is actually a reference to a parable in Matthew 25 where the maker, the master, leaves these talents, and a talent was an immense amount of money and he leaves these talents with people, and he says, do with them what you will, and of course, some of them use the talents and increase them, and he's very pleased with these folks. But the person who's given only one talent hides it and then gives it back to the master when the master returns and the master is deeply upset, very angry and throws this servant out and says “you know at the very least you could have invested it so that I could earn some interest” and Milton is playing off of that parable here because he's saying you've given me one talent which is basically to write incredible poems. He has no lack of confidence. He knew that he had this talent. You've given me this talent. And then you're the one who hid it. You're the one who made me hide it. And now you're going to come back to me and charge me with not having used it. And not only that, you've made it useless. And useless there is a play on usury, which is basically to invest things and gain interest on them. So he says, you're the one who made it not even gain interest. And so Milton is really angry at God here. And he says, you're the one who's going to come back and chide me. And right at that moment, “lest he returning chide”, you think you're going to hear what God is going to chide him with what God is going to say to him when he returns. And instead it's Milton who breaks in and chides God. So the quote there is actually Milton speaking to God. “‘Doth God exact day labor, light denied?’” Do you expect me to work during the day when you take the day away? And the fondly there, “I fondly ask”, fondly is a word that means foolishly, I foolishly ask. Yeah and he's almost going to ask it. You think that he has asked it, but suddenly the poem turns. So what's the turn here? Joanne: So the turn is another force intervenes in this poem. He hears the voice of patience. And I love that word. The origin, the etymology of patience is to suffer or endure suffering, which is very useful for this poem. And so patience comes in as another voice, “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”. That's very interesting. So patience is a god-like force that's in the mind and heart of Milton. And it's sort of an intermediary that's sort of, as you say, preventing that murmur, that foolish or fond murmur that Milton almost utters to God and says, you know what, don't worry about your talents, don't worry about your gifts. Just bearing and enduring the mild yoke that God has given you. That's the way to serve God. It's very profound. Abram: And the word prevent there is doing a lot of work because what it literally means is to come before. And so patience comes before Milton can actually utter this thing to God, and prevents it, and begins to calm him. But the other remarkable thing here is the way in which this turn comes before the moment that it should. So the turn should come at line nine, and instead this, these words, but patience to prevent, come halfway through line eight. So there are literally four words too soon, and the words that he's using are words that mean to come too soon. So he's playing off of the structure of the poem itself so that the turn literally prevents him from uttering the anger he has at God. Joanne: So even as I hear you talking, maybe we could just take a moment to think about that structure that Milton has chosen for the poem, right? It's a Petrarchan sonnet. And basically, traditionally, when poets have used the Petrarchan sonnet, they're using the first eight lines and a very particular rhyme scheme and rhythm and all that to present a sight, an image, a description of something that is being beheld. And then the final six lines provide a meditation or insight into that sight or into that image or into that beholding. So there's a way in which this is such a poignant and powerful use of the Petrarchan form because Milton cannot show us the sight. He's now blind, right? So the first eight lines are all about what he can't see. They are all about that dark world and wide and then the final six lines are that intervention from patients reminding him to just stand and wait. It's a very powerful innovation of the form. Abram: And just to lay out the rhyme scheme here that helps people see the way that a Petrarchan sonnet is divided between eight and six, the rhyme scheme goes A, B, B, A, A, B, B, A. That's the first eight lines. And then the last six lines are C, D, E, C, D, E. So you can see the way that the shape of the poem itself divides itself between an eight and a six. Yeah. And it's the beginning of the sixth. Where you usually get the insight to the site. Well, we haven't been given a site. We've instead been given a problem, which is the lack of sight. And so Milton is playing all sorts of ways with this form. Joanne: Yeah. It's a very powerful last couple of sentences to this poem. Where Milton, or at least Patience when speaking to Milton, reminds Milton that God is a kingly figure. “‘His state,’” his state meaning gods, “‘His state is kingly. Thousands at his bidding, speed and post, or land and ocean, without rest, they also serve, who only stand and wait.’” What do you think is happening in these final lines of the poem, Abram? Abram: It's the weirdest sort of comfort. And yet a comfort all the same. What the comfort is basically saying is, yes, God has given you this talent, and yes, for the time being at least, God has taken it away. But the thing is, God doesn't actually need your service at all. And it's a mistake to believe that God needs your service. your talents or needs your labor. So even if you go look at the, at the first part of the song, though my soul more bent to serve there with my maker, he's playing off that word bent. On the one hand, it means I desire all the more to serve my maker with the talents that the maker has given me. On the other hand, a bent soul means there's something wrong with it. And the wrongness there is the idea that Milton is almost saving himself. What God has asked of him instead is to wait, to endure, and that endurance is its own form of service. So when you get to that last incredible line, they also serve who only stand and wait. That wait has these two kinds of meaning. On the one hand, it means an incredible amount of stillness. To stand and wait means not to do. It also has the meaning of waiting on someone. So if you think of a waiter in a restaurant or something, that's somebody who's awaiting commands to go do something for you. But that waiting is in itself a kind of stillness, a kind of non activity that is incredibly active with obedience. Joanne: You know, as I, as I hear you reading this poem, I'm focusing on some of these words that really teach me a lot. This notion that Milton's soul is bent, that there's something wrong there. The fact that he foolishly wants to ask God about this labor. The way that patience is telling him to just stand and wait and be still. It really is a powerful, powerful message. lesson for me because, you know, when I first encountered Milton, I did not like him at all. I thought he was egotistical. I thought he was a religiously dogmatic individual. He seemed thoroughly unlikable. And yet each time I revisit his work over the years, I feel more and more fondness for him because he is such a great poet, but of middle age. He provides such a model for understanding fallenness, for understanding disappointment, for understanding how we can be resilient in the face of adversity. It's certainly true in Paradise Lost when you think about how poignant his portrayal of Satan is, and of course Adam and Eve as well. And it's really here in this poem too. I am very moved by this poem. Abram: Yeah, I have to say, I've taught this poem to a lot of groups of people, and the folks who tend to respond to this poem the most are folks who tend to be elderly, who are enduring their own kinds of physical afflictions, whose life has in some ways slowed down from the very active lives they had known before. And they hear in this poem a call that in a certain sense validates their endurance as its own kind of service and witness. That for them is incredibly moving and incredibly powerful. And you and I talked before this podcast about whether Milton even hears the voice of God in this poem or not. I mean, patience is the word he uses. But it's not clear whether this patience is coming from within Milton, or whether this patience is the voice of God, or some kind of mix of both. But if you think about it, he is, by the end of this poem, still waiting. for God to speak. If patience is the thing that's preventing him from murmuring against God, then he is, by the end of the poem, still waiting for God to speak, for God to act. It's just that he's come to a place where that waiting is validated as his own kind of service and obedience. Joanne: And amazingly, He still wrote the poem. Abram: He still wrote the poem, right? The poem is the answer to the problem of the poem. And we've seen this so many times before with Anne Bradstreet too, where the processing of the grief is the writing of the poem. The poem becomes a kind of answer in the writing of it. Yeah. To the problem of the poem itself. Joanne: Yeah. Yeah. Abram: With all that said, Joanne, would you be willing to read this poem again? Joanne: I would be happy to. When I consider how my light is spent. [Poem] Abram: So good. You can learn more about John Milton and see the text of this poem on the Poetry for All website at poetryforall.fireside.fm Joanne: And please remember to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Abram: Thank you for listening.