When I Consider How My Light is Spent

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1673

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Further Reading & Resources

Related Poems

“How Soon Hath Time” by John Milton (1630s)

The short lyric illuminates Sonnet XIX—here a young Milton is peevishly disappointed in how, already in his twenties, he has yet to accomplish the great things his education promised. He is educated, his family privileged, his talents impressive. Why am I not more of a big deal? The urgency here, really the frustration, is directed to his secular world and to his desperate feeling that time is passing him by. What is lacking is the voice of patience. Unlike this poem, Sonnet XIX is more reflective, a poem of a much older man who is coming to see that achievements do not impress God as much as faith.

“The Ebb and Flow” by Edward Taylor (1660s)

Among the most prominent second-generation Puritan poets in New England, Taylor, a devout acolyte of Milton, examines here the dilemma that Milton examines: how to handle the massive spiritual crisis of doubt, what to do when the soul is bent to Heaven but the heart, and even the intellect, cast genuine doubts and faith begins to ebb. The resolution that Taylor provides indicates Taylor’s much acknowledged debt to Milton: The soul calms the heart. Faith will always survive doubts.

“Contemplations” by Anne Bradstreet (1678)

Another North American continent reader of Milton, Puritan Anne Bradstreet recounts in this lengthy poem about a walk along Connecticut’s Merrimack River how her heart and her soul debate the truest dimension of the grandeur of God’s Creation. Much as with Milton’s debate with patience, Bradstreet comes to what, for a devout Puritan, is the inevitable (and joyous) conclusion: yes, the earth teems with beauty but wait, be patient, for God will ultimately reveal a paradise beyond that dimension. As a believer, Bradstreet concludes, faith is stronger than vision.

Further Literary Resources

“Milton’s First Sonnet on His Blindness” by Harry F. Robins (1956)

One of the earliest and most eloquent discussions of Milton’s sonnet, the article tests the long-held truism that the poem is centrally about Milton’s physical blindness and his fretting over how he can be a poet without his eyesight. The article challenges that reading by suggesting that the dialogue with patience as well as the most likely timeline of the poem composition suggests that Milton was weighing in on far broader concerns. The poem ends not in despondency (he is still blind, after all) but with the poet aware now that his blindness has little to do with his standing with his God.

“John Milton: On His Blindness and His Concept of Science” by Edward R. Raupp (2020)

One of the more current readings of the sonnet, this article examines how Milton, aware of the cutting-edge work in the sciences (he counted among his acquaintances Galileo himself), sees as critical the long-standing debate between the Catholic Church and the breakaway Protestant movement as whether salvation can be earned by good works or rather solely by faith. That debate is central to understanding the wider implications of the sonnet and its use of blindness as a metaphor.

“The Blindness of John Milton” by George B. Bartley (1985)

A seminal reading of the poem that codifies the theme of a poet, now blind, anxious over his loss of vision and how this sudden darkness will impact his ability to write. This is a full articulation of the poem as a poem about a physical disability and finds affirmation in Milton’s closing assertion that the blind, who can do little but stand about and wait for the reward of salvation, serve God as highly as those sighted who go about the world doing good work.

Listen to Poem

Voice Actor Jordan Harling reads “When I Consider How My Light is Spent”

Not surprisingly, in a culture where we have been acclimated to regarding those with disabilities as heroic, there are dozens of recordings of the sonnet available on YouTube that focus on eyes and images of fading light. Many of the recordings are supplemented with extensive commentary about the poem, most focused on the blindness of the poet and his struggle to adjust to that loss. Perhaps the most impactful reading, however, dispenses with burdening the poem with such a limited perspective and allows the poem to speak for itself. Jordan Harling, a British voice actor and parttime academic who has made something of a cottage industry recording classical poetry for YouTube audiences, offers a quiet reading of the poem that allows Milton’s split voice without exaggerating the poem’s internal dialogue into clumsy theater. This reading centers on the pivotal word “but,” lingering just long enough to create the urgent movement into the poem’s affirmation of God’s might.