The last line "They also serve who only stand and wait", was used in WWII to encourage not only those waiting at home, but also those serving in other capacities than on the frontline. Which reminds me of one of the most difficult and rewarding experiences of my student days:
When I was still a very rookie nursing student, I was given the responsibility one day to care for a patient who had a reputation for being difficult. At first, it was terrible for me, who am naturally quiet and unassertive, trying to persuade the patient to cooperate with what needed to be done. I had to take the patient to an appointment. We had to wait a while, and the patient tried to tell me that I was wasting my time staying with him. I assured him that I wasn't. After a while, he looked at me standing by his wheelchair, and said he had remembered a saying from the Second World War, "They also serve who stand and wait." Then he began to tell me his wartime experiences. At the end of the day, when I said goodbye to the patient, he was quite cordial, saying it had been a pleasure. I have often remembered his words, as I have done a lot of standing and waiting over the years, for one reason and another.
That is a wonderful story, Holly. I had never heard a story of anyone who used or was affected by that slogan from the war. It seems to me to be exactly how Milton meant it.
Thank you, Karen for choosing this poem. Milton is describing something universal for those who live long enough to experience the teacher of humility that is aging. I have a comparitively mild neurological condition that is chipping away at things I used to be able to do. As I watch friends age or I grieve my own loss of abilities, this poem reminds me that i can wait and pray, and find new opportunitiesto serve at The King's pleasure.
As I noted to Charlie above, it seems sadly ironic that in this age of so many resources, and so much ability to communicate, we don’t seem to be preparing one another as as well as as we could for the realities of aging. It’s really not easy to face. Yet, we all must. Or at least ideally we do!
So timely. I serve as a chaplain to our local Sheriff’s office, and last night I was put on standby when a call dropped on the downing of a 9 month old child. I waited prayerfully and was glad to be told to “stand down” because the child had been resuscitated and transported to the hospital. My agonizingly slow service of waiting was filled with a prayer that was blessedly answered by God’s mercy. It will take me a long time to unpack this lesson, and your piece was just what I needed for this morning’s quiet time. Merry Christmas Karen.
Goodness, Rick. What a task you are called to. And how much it must entail standing and waiting. I’m thankful for your service. And thank you for sharing these precious, tense moments with us. Stopping to pray for this boy, his family, and you right now.
Thank you for sharing and all the work you did to bring out the whole meaning of this for us. I appreciate your explanation of how the sonnet is written and your definitions of various terms. Very helpful.
This is poignant for me. We are taught, especially in America, to work hard, and it is strongly implied, even told to us, that our value and worth are found in what we can contribute to society.
My husband and I have wrestled with these thoughts when we consider our son, who has limited mobility and other challenges. He is not anxious about his life, but we are. HA! We’ve talked with anxiety about what his life looks like as he becomes an adult. And I’ve spoken with the Lord precisely about what Milton wrestles with in the sonnet. The Lord reminds me that he will care for our son and give him purpose, meaning, and fulfillment. God does not need our son to achieve great things and have many talents. My son bears his image; that is enough, right?
Even without everything that supposedly makes people "great," I see how he touches people’s hearts. And I know that God can use someone in extraordinary ways, even when society's definition of success and achievement does not match his abilities. I think, "My grace is sufficient for thee."
Mel, thank you for sharing these insights here. I love your posts about your son. I will be honest, every one of those posts makes me think about these things. Another writer/mom who addresses similar issues is my friend Amy Julia Becker who wrestled years ago (and still) with having a firstborn with Down Syndrome. Also Micha Boyett whose youngest has several disabilities. I featured their books here a while back in a post.
Anyway, more to your point: we really do as Americans and moderns struggle with finding value so much in work and productivity. Really struggle!
I spoke on the phone a few days back to a friend, a linguist and teacher who has spent her life doing research and publishing her findings. She developed Parkinson's and macular degeneration and has finally had to give up reading and writing. Just as Milton describes here, the loss of her ability to use her talents is very, very hard to bear. God does not need our works or our gifts, but it is difficult to accept stillness, especially when it is imposed against our will.
It is very difficult, Charlie. We may know that God doesn’t need our “talents.” But most of us need them most of the time to see the meaning and purpose of our lives (which goes far beyond our talents and gifts, but that is hard to recognize, too.)
Yes, which is one of the reasons old age is so challenging. The diminishment of our abilities makes us feel we have no purpose. Some push through that, like blind Milton and deaf Beethoven and Helen Keller, and far more unknowns who continue to find ways to honor God and love his people with whatever they have left to give.
I am learning more and more about the challenges of old age. We have no excuse in the world today to not prepare ourselves and better prepare others for it, especially considering that our life expectancies keep increasing. You have me thinking….
Karen, your analysis of this poem has taken me back to the first time I read it almost 30 years ago as a college freshman -- following a life-altering accident that robbed me of my Talent. (Not to compare mine to Milton's -- but it was life-giving to me.) This poem acknowledged the "death" I felt, unable to use it, and the waste I felt, unable to honor God with it. The final line was the Gospel truth to me: it is not we who do the work, but Jesus who works in us for God's glory. It also pointed me to Psalm 27:13-14, a favorite passage that has sustained me through the waiting.
"I remain confident of this:
I will see the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living.
Wait for the Lord;
be strong and take heart
and wait for the Lord."
Your post today has brought me full circle. I'm able to celebrate that the waiting and submitting have led to the decades-long development of new talents and the gift of writing, which I hope God is using for his glory!
Oh, Kate! Thank you so much for sharing this perspective and your experience here. And our pain is our pain. It’s all we can know and there is no way to compare it to someone else’s. ❤️🩹 Grateful for your journey and for your sharing some of it here.
First, O Milton! Fifty years ago my mind wandered, and so found myself flipping through the pages of Norton's Shorter Anthology of Poetry where I met him. Sonnets were so much easier to process than some of the larger texts, and so this with with two others (How Soon Hath Time, Methought I Saw) became an entry, a gateway to Lycidas and then Paradise Lost. Poetry--found poetry--invited me in in that classroom.
And Second, on oral presentation: as a coach for speech, I hear young speakers struggle with the elements of poetry, the line linkage where thought turns around the line end, where sound gets lost as a mediocre poem dissolves into prose. What I try to bring forth is attention to the inner changes of temperament even in a short poem, how lines not only are found on some sort of narrative trajectory, but how they also comment on one another. That Brooks poem provides an excellent invitation for this sort of reading. One might hear it in Milton in ln 6 with "lest he returning chide" thus setting up a gentle mocking tone; and then there is the slowing of tempo with ln 8, "Patience to prevent" which said slowly and separately sets up a sort of rushing the beginning of the next "that murmur.." It is this music of lines speaking to one another that so delights and (for me) properly defines poetry; sense, but always music.
I understand what you are saying about how to read the lines. When I studied music history, I remember learning about the technique of word or tone painting. Setting words to music is an art form any way it is done, but in tone painting, the music is made to reflect the words in the way you describe speaking the poetry.
The other day, I found myself giving my parents a mini-lecture on musical tone painting of choral music, using 'All we like sheep', from Handel's Messiah, which had just come on the radio. The chorus is in an major key, bright and quick. On the word 'astray' the music moves through several seemingly random notes, as if the music is wandering. In the line 'We have turned every one to his own way', the word turned is set to a musical turn - to the listener, it sounds as if the music is spinning - while 'every one to his own way' is repeated by the different choral voices as if each voice is going their own way. When the chorus comes to the final section 'And the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all', the music abruptly turns minor and slows down: https://youtu.be/bvTSql44k6Y?feature=shared [N.B. Watch the 'outtakes' at the end]
So helpful, William. Thank you. I admit, I have a lot of trouble reading this sonnet aloud and am very sure I don't get it right. I was nervous doing so for this recording!
I have judged some poetry recitation contests in past years, and in one, it was clear that the teacher/coach had taught all the students to pause at the end of every line no matter what and it was quite jarring. Not the students' fault at all.
I want to go back and keep practicing reading this sonnet aloud! (How did I do, William? Really?)
My light is spent. The world is dark. My one Talent... is useless.
By the end, he seems resigned to set aside his writing and wait quietly but faithfully. But he didn't do that, did he? He contrived to keep using his Talent by dictating his words to others. It may have turned out to be a hopeless task, but he was able to make it work with stunning results. I suspect that determination came in some part from his understanding of Jesus' parable, that we don't know how long the Master will be away, so meanwhile, we have to be at work with whatever the Master has given us, doing his work out of simple obedience.
The poem shows him making peace with his blindness, but his actions after that time show him pushing back against what he had been dealt with. Both are courageous.
Charlie, this is a very perceptive and important insight. It adds even more tension to a poem already marked by delicate tensions. Thank you for adding this beautiful observation.
Karen, can I ask about enjambment (in general, not just this poem). I often find that some of the emphases of a poem come across to me through enjambment, focussing my attention on the word(s) at the beginning of the new line (or perhaps new stanza). I imagine that's what the poet is trying to achieve. Given that happens when reading visually, might a poet (or other reader of a poem) try to convey that emphasis orally in some way or other? On listening to Wendell Berry reading his poem, The Peace of Wild Things, it feels like he gives a micro-pause at the end of a line and even moreso for the line that begins 'of grief', which is a powerful placement of that phrase. Here is where he does so https://onbeing.org/poetry/the-peace-of-wild-things/
That is such an interesting and helpful question. Honestly, when I was writing this essay out, I thought briefly for a moment of including a long explanation of reading enjambment, which can include very small pauses at the end of a line because that does happen sometimes. It’s so difficult to explain or describe, largely because I think it’s a natural thing in terms of how each writer writes in each reader reads. The real problem is when people simply stop at the end of every line and pause because are used to reading “roses are red, violets are blue” and read everything that way. If I were reading Berry’s poem, I would not read it the way that he does. But he is the author! And that’s why it’s such a treat to hear a poet read his own work because he brings to it nuances that are essential. I also wonder if there’s something in a person’s regional accent that affects the way they write and read poetry. There are more natural pauses in dialects like Berry’s, I think. And I think enjambment is a more dramatic presence in lines of pentameter, which modern poets use less.
I was so happy to learn the term enjambment, as I've noticed to in all the poets we've read to date. I had been accustomed thoughts being completed by the end of each line, so enjambment seemed a bit like cheating, but it worked so well for the great poets that I thought I must be mistaken. Now I know it is a genuine, and highly sophisticated, technique.
So interesting that you noticed it without realizing what it was. I’m glad you know now and even more. Glad that you recognize its brilliance when in the right hands.
Karen, if I may jump in here....When I began writing poetry and self-published my first collection (2021) I'd been following/bugging/fangirling several Christian contemporary poets for several years--Scott Cairns, Laurie Klein, Susan Cowger, Tania Runyan, to name a few, and the inimitable Luci Shaw. All of them provided answers to the simplest of my questions (my degree is in Early Childhood, NOT Literature or writing) and offered encouragement along the way as well.
I was taught in "the school of 3,000 books" as poet Barbara Crooker has said.
My understanding, which I share with other young authors just starting out, is that language drives a poem and the lines should provide a turn-'versa' in Latin--that encourages the reader to continue to the next line to complete the thought.
Line breaks are very intentional--something I've been schooled in and edited through in my own work (my second book came out in August 2023) and every word matters, how it sounds and how it looks.
I don't think I'd identified the word 'enjambment' to describe this practice until today; I'm grateful to have the vocabulary to describe the process of writing free verse.
Helping people understand how to read--and write--poems that "don't rhyme" takes some doing, so thank you for another great lesson!
That's really helpful, Karen, thank you. Do you think scanning a line and the eyes then moving to the next line forces a kind of micro pause in the reader's mind? Dialects certainly do make a difference don't they; the Welsh accent I grew up among/with are very sing-song and without doubt have an effect on the reading of Welsh poetry and also affect how English poems are read by Welsh-speakers. Love the way Brooks reads her poem! I'd never have thought to read it that way :) It's so original and captivating.
I do think that reading a poem on the page allows us to see the break and that reading it aloud doesn’t. I think that’s why engagement is so more part of traditional poetry that uses rhyme scheme and regular meter. The meter and the end rhymes allow a reader to hear the end of a line when the poem is being read so the pause is less necessary, if that makes sense.
Soooo glad you've covered this poem, Karen, it's long been a favourite but I never had the tools for getting into and under the more technical aspects of it, which are a delight to read. It's a wonderful comfort to know that "God does not need our works or our gifts." Thank you! Back in the lockdown era I wrote a couple of devotional pieces each week for the church, this poem was the basis for one of them - https://thewaitingcountry.blogspot.com/2021/02/they-also-serve-joy-in-journey-89.html
I'm really looking forward to the series on PL - it's been on my must-read list for so long, I've made several attempts at it, getting beyond the first book but not much further, alas. Feels like the weekly encouragement here could be what I've been needing. I have it in hardback, in the Everyman Library series, which is a nice edition. Also looking forward to your book on calling, is it scheduled for publication yet?
Lovely devotional, Richard. Your phrase “enforced idleness” captures so much about those days of the lockdown and many of our days when we are sick or broken or weary.
I’m so glad you are going to come along the PL journey. I feel a little daunted myself, given the limitations of this form (as opposed to the dynamism of a classroom). But I’m excited to see what we and Milton can do!
That later in life Milton dictated his work to his daughters makes me wonder about the influence that they had on the process and the development of his thought.
I should mention that a scholar who specializes in Milton (I don’t) told me it’s not likely Milton dictated to his daughters. If he did, it was probably only the eldest. He did use scribes though. I can only imagine that for him (as many of previous ages) poetry was much more musical—in his ear and in his head. He may have been closer to Homer in that regard—certainly closer than we are following the age of print.
This poem has come up several times for me this year. It’s following me! It’s haunting me (in the best way—like A Christmas Carol) this week, and I keep coming back to it and to this post.
Two things: I keep thinking about Milton NOT titling it “On His Blindness,” and I think about how light is spent in ways not related to vision. I also keep thinking about patience interrupting! What a beautiful and unexpected idea. Months ago, I imagined patience as the Holy Spirit prompting. When I read it now, the lowercase has me thinking about patience personified in other ways, and I imagine it this week as the relationship between Milton and his Maker. I think of a life lived built on trust and prayer, and at the very thought of asking God if he “exacts day-labor, light denied” (another place I read light on another layer), Milton’s own personal history with God steps in to remind him of the Lord’s Kingly state and the character of God he so intimately knows.
I’m in awe of the beauty of this poem. Thank you for sharing!! And to think about what God actually did do with this vulnerable moment, light denied having no power here, I’m simply floored in the best way. I also love how he ends it on “Wait.” Full stop. I see Milton obeying here. He gives no reply to patience, and the implication is that he then stood in awe and waited.
Oh, wow! I love what you add to the poem with this observation about its ending and its lack of response to patience. And I love that this poem is haunting you. What a good ghost.
Karen, thank you for the explication and reflection on this beautiful, vulnerable sonnet.
That final line also reminds me of the story from one of the times King David was on the run. There was controversy in the ranks over how the soldiers who guarded the baggage should be rewarded relative to those who fought the battle.
“Then David came to the two hundred men who had been too exhausted to follow David, and who had been left at the brook Besor. And they went out to meet David and to meet the people who were with him. And when David came near to the people he greeted them. Then all the wicked and worthless fellows among the men who had gone with David said, “Because they did not go with us, we will not give them any of the spoil that we have recovered, except that each man may lead away his wife and children, and depart.” But David said, “You shall not do so, my brothers, with what the Lord has given us. He has preserved us and given into our hand the band that came against us. Who would listen to you in this matter? For as his share is who goes down into the battle, so shall his share be who stays by the baggage. They shall share alike.””
1 Samuel 30:21-24 ESV
As someone living with disabling chronic illnesses, I find those thoughts comforting in the Lord.
One question about “patience” here: in Milton’s day did it mean specifically a willingness to wait calmly, as we tend to use it now, or more broadly willingness to suffer with calm forbearance, the way it tends to be used in Scripture? Merriam-Webster inclines me toward the latter, but I don’t know what OED indicates.
What a beautiful passage from scripture that really connects to this theme! Thank you, Christina. I see it with fresh eyes through you.
Milton's understanding of "patience" would have reflected the classical understanding, I think, of virtue ethics. He would have known that the word in its etymology means "suffering" and that the virtue of patience is to bear suffering well. I have a whole chapter on this in On Reading Well.
I’m excited to report that I have a very cool, prestigious, and hard-to-get (ha!) guest who has agree to author a post later in our series on Paradise Lost. The biggest draw, I think, was my description of the kind of engagement we have here from you, dear readers. The conversation here is so rich and I had to brag a little! Thank you, friends! And I can’t wait (some weeks/months from now) to share this guest entry from a renowned reader and writer! 😊
The last line "They also serve who only stand and wait", was used in WWII to encourage not only those waiting at home, but also those serving in other capacities than on the frontline. Which reminds me of one of the most difficult and rewarding experiences of my student days:
When I was still a very rookie nursing student, I was given the responsibility one day to care for a patient who had a reputation for being difficult. At first, it was terrible for me, who am naturally quiet and unassertive, trying to persuade the patient to cooperate with what needed to be done. I had to take the patient to an appointment. We had to wait a while, and the patient tried to tell me that I was wasting my time staying with him. I assured him that I wasn't. After a while, he looked at me standing by his wheelchair, and said he had remembered a saying from the Second World War, "They also serve who stand and wait." Then he began to tell me his wartime experiences. At the end of the day, when I said goodbye to the patient, he was quite cordial, saying it had been a pleasure. I have often remembered his words, as I have done a lot of standing and waiting over the years, for one reason and another.
That is a wonderful story, Holly. I had never heard a story of anyone who used or was affected by that slogan from the war. It seems to me to be exactly how Milton meant it.
Such a lovely, encouraging account Holly.
Thank you, Karen for choosing this poem. Milton is describing something universal for those who live long enough to experience the teacher of humility that is aging. I have a comparitively mild neurological condition that is chipping away at things I used to be able to do. As I watch friends age or I grieve my own loss of abilities, this poem reminds me that i can wait and pray, and find new opportunitiesto serve at The King's pleasure.
As I noted to Charlie above, it seems sadly ironic that in this age of so many resources, and so much ability to communicate, we don’t seem to be preparing one another as as well as as we could for the realities of aging. It’s really not easy to face. Yet, we all must. Or at least ideally we do!
"...those who live long enough to experience the teacher of humility that is aging." Yes.
So timely. I serve as a chaplain to our local Sheriff’s office, and last night I was put on standby when a call dropped on the downing of a 9 month old child. I waited prayerfully and was glad to be told to “stand down” because the child had been resuscitated and transported to the hospital. My agonizingly slow service of waiting was filled with a prayer that was blessedly answered by God’s mercy. It will take me a long time to unpack this lesson, and your piece was just what I needed for this morning’s quiet time. Merry Christmas Karen.
Goodness, Rick. What a task you are called to. And how much it must entail standing and waiting. I’m thankful for your service. And thank you for sharing these precious, tense moments with us. Stopping to pray for this boy, his family, and you right now.
Thank you for sharing and all the work you did to bring out the whole meaning of this for us. I appreciate your explanation of how the sonnet is written and your definitions of various terms. Very helpful.
This is poignant for me. We are taught, especially in America, to work hard, and it is strongly implied, even told to us, that our value and worth are found in what we can contribute to society.
My husband and I have wrestled with these thoughts when we consider our son, who has limited mobility and other challenges. He is not anxious about his life, but we are. HA! We’ve talked with anxiety about what his life looks like as he becomes an adult. And I’ve spoken with the Lord precisely about what Milton wrestles with in the sonnet. The Lord reminds me that he will care for our son and give him purpose, meaning, and fulfillment. God does not need our son to achieve great things and have many talents. My son bears his image; that is enough, right?
Even without everything that supposedly makes people "great," I see how he touches people’s hearts. And I know that God can use someone in extraordinary ways, even when society's definition of success and achievement does not match his abilities. I think, "My grace is sufficient for thee."
Mel, thank you for sharing these insights here. I love your posts about your son. I will be honest, every one of those posts makes me think about these things. Another writer/mom who addresses similar issues is my friend Amy Julia Becker who wrestled years ago (and still) with having a firstborn with Down Syndrome. Also Micha Boyett whose youngest has several disabilities. I featured their books here a while back in a post.
Anyway, more to your point: we really do as Americans and moderns struggle with finding value so much in work and productivity. Really struggle!
I am in the process of reading Micha’s book. 🧡
I spoke on the phone a few days back to a friend, a linguist and teacher who has spent her life doing research and publishing her findings. She developed Parkinson's and macular degeneration and has finally had to give up reading and writing. Just as Milton describes here, the loss of her ability to use her talents is very, very hard to bear. God does not need our works or our gifts, but it is difficult to accept stillness, especially when it is imposed against our will.
It is very difficult, Charlie. We may know that God doesn’t need our “talents.” But most of us need them most of the time to see the meaning and purpose of our lives (which goes far beyond our talents and gifts, but that is hard to recognize, too.)
Yes, which is one of the reasons old age is so challenging. The diminishment of our abilities makes us feel we have no purpose. Some push through that, like blind Milton and deaf Beethoven and Helen Keller, and far more unknowns who continue to find ways to honor God and love his people with whatever they have left to give.
I am learning more and more about the challenges of old age. We have no excuse in the world today to not prepare ourselves and better prepare others for it, especially considering that our life expectancies keep increasing. You have me thinking….
Karen, your analysis of this poem has taken me back to the first time I read it almost 30 years ago as a college freshman -- following a life-altering accident that robbed me of my Talent. (Not to compare mine to Milton's -- but it was life-giving to me.) This poem acknowledged the "death" I felt, unable to use it, and the waste I felt, unable to honor God with it. The final line was the Gospel truth to me: it is not we who do the work, but Jesus who works in us for God's glory. It also pointed me to Psalm 27:13-14, a favorite passage that has sustained me through the waiting.
"I remain confident of this:
I will see the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living.
Wait for the Lord;
be strong and take heart
and wait for the Lord."
Your post today has brought me full circle. I'm able to celebrate that the waiting and submitting have led to the decades-long development of new talents and the gift of writing, which I hope God is using for his glory!
Oh, Kate! Thank you so much for sharing this perspective and your experience here. And our pain is our pain. It’s all we can know and there is no way to compare it to someone else’s. ❤️🩹 Grateful for your journey and for your sharing some of it here.
Thank you for hosting a wonderful forum that discusses the life-altering power of literature!
🩵
Two non-connected comments:
First, O Milton! Fifty years ago my mind wandered, and so found myself flipping through the pages of Norton's Shorter Anthology of Poetry where I met him. Sonnets were so much easier to process than some of the larger texts, and so this with with two others (How Soon Hath Time, Methought I Saw) became an entry, a gateway to Lycidas and then Paradise Lost. Poetry--found poetry--invited me in in that classroom.
And Second, on oral presentation: as a coach for speech, I hear young speakers struggle with the elements of poetry, the line linkage where thought turns around the line end, where sound gets lost as a mediocre poem dissolves into prose. What I try to bring forth is attention to the inner changes of temperament even in a short poem, how lines not only are found on some sort of narrative trajectory, but how they also comment on one another. That Brooks poem provides an excellent invitation for this sort of reading. One might hear it in Milton in ln 6 with "lest he returning chide" thus setting up a gentle mocking tone; and then there is the slowing of tempo with ln 8, "Patience to prevent" which said slowly and separately sets up a sort of rushing the beginning of the next "that murmur.." It is this music of lines speaking to one another that so delights and (for me) properly defines poetry; sense, but always music.
I understand what you are saying about how to read the lines. When I studied music history, I remember learning about the technique of word or tone painting. Setting words to music is an art form any way it is done, but in tone painting, the music is made to reflect the words in the way you describe speaking the poetry.
The other day, I found myself giving my parents a mini-lecture on musical tone painting of choral music, using 'All we like sheep', from Handel's Messiah, which had just come on the radio. The chorus is in an major key, bright and quick. On the word 'astray' the music moves through several seemingly random notes, as if the music is wandering. In the line 'We have turned every one to his own way', the word turned is set to a musical turn - to the listener, it sounds as if the music is spinning - while 'every one to his own way' is repeated by the different choral voices as if each voice is going their own way. When the chorus comes to the final section 'And the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all', the music abruptly turns minor and slows down: https://youtu.be/bvTSql44k6Y?feature=shared [N.B. Watch the 'outtakes' at the end]
So helpful, William. Thank you. I admit, I have a lot of trouble reading this sonnet aloud and am very sure I don't get it right. I was nervous doing so for this recording!
I have judged some poetry recitation contests in past years, and in one, it was clear that the teacher/coach had taught all the students to pause at the end of every line no matter what and it was quite jarring. Not the students' fault at all.
I want to go back and keep practicing reading this sonnet aloud! (How did I do, William? Really?)
His first few lines speak of finality:
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,...
My light is spent. The world is dark. My one Talent... is useless.
By the end, he seems resigned to set aside his writing and wait quietly but faithfully. But he didn't do that, did he? He contrived to keep using his Talent by dictating his words to others. It may have turned out to be a hopeless task, but he was able to make it work with stunning results. I suspect that determination came in some part from his understanding of Jesus' parable, that we don't know how long the Master will be away, so meanwhile, we have to be at work with whatever the Master has given us, doing his work out of simple obedience.
The poem shows him making peace with his blindness, but his actions after that time show him pushing back against what he had been dealt with. Both are courageous.
Charlie, this is a very perceptive and important insight. It adds even more tension to a poem already marked by delicate tensions. Thank you for adding this beautiful observation.
Karen, can I ask about enjambment (in general, not just this poem). I often find that some of the emphases of a poem come across to me through enjambment, focussing my attention on the word(s) at the beginning of the new line (or perhaps new stanza). I imagine that's what the poet is trying to achieve. Given that happens when reading visually, might a poet (or other reader of a poem) try to convey that emphasis orally in some way or other? On listening to Wendell Berry reading his poem, The Peace of Wild Things, it feels like he gives a micro-pause at the end of a line and even moreso for the line that begins 'of grief', which is a powerful placement of that phrase. Here is where he does so https://onbeing.org/poetry/the-peace-of-wild-things/
That is such an interesting and helpful question. Honestly, when I was writing this essay out, I thought briefly for a moment of including a long explanation of reading enjambment, which can include very small pauses at the end of a line because that does happen sometimes. It’s so difficult to explain or describe, largely because I think it’s a natural thing in terms of how each writer writes in each reader reads. The real problem is when people simply stop at the end of every line and pause because are used to reading “roses are red, violets are blue” and read everything that way. If I were reading Berry’s poem, I would not read it the way that he does. But he is the author! And that’s why it’s such a treat to hear a poet read his own work because he brings to it nuances that are essential. I also wonder if there’s something in a person’s regional accent that affects the way they write and read poetry. There are more natural pauses in dialects like Berry’s, I think. And I think enjambment is a more dramatic presence in lines of pentameter, which modern poets use less.
Here’s Gwendolyn Brooks reading her poem in which she pause both at the ends of the lines and after the end of the clauses: https://www.google.com/gasearch?q=brooks%20we%20real%20cool%20recording&source=sh/x/gs/m2/5#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:84d6ac7d,vid:oaVfLwZ6jes,st:0
Here’s the text of that poem:
The Pool Players.
Seven at the Golden Shovel.
We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June. We
Die soon.
I was so happy to learn the term enjambment, as I've noticed to in all the poets we've read to date. I had been accustomed thoughts being completed by the end of each line, so enjambment seemed a bit like cheating, but it worked so well for the great poets that I thought I must be mistaken. Now I know it is a genuine, and highly sophisticated, technique.
So interesting that you noticed it without realizing what it was. I’m glad you know now and even more. Glad that you recognize its brilliance when in the right hands.
Karen, if I may jump in here....When I began writing poetry and self-published my first collection (2021) I'd been following/bugging/fangirling several Christian contemporary poets for several years--Scott Cairns, Laurie Klein, Susan Cowger, Tania Runyan, to name a few, and the inimitable Luci Shaw. All of them provided answers to the simplest of my questions (my degree is in Early Childhood, NOT Literature or writing) and offered encouragement along the way as well.
I was taught in "the school of 3,000 books" as poet Barbara Crooker has said.
My understanding, which I share with other young authors just starting out, is that language drives a poem and the lines should provide a turn-'versa' in Latin--that encourages the reader to continue to the next line to complete the thought.
Line breaks are very intentional--something I've been schooled in and edited through in my own work (my second book came out in August 2023) and every word matters, how it sounds and how it looks.
I don't think I'd identified the word 'enjambment' to describe this practice until today; I'm grateful to have the vocabulary to describe the process of writing free verse.
Helping people understand how to read--and write--poems that "don't rhyme" takes some doing, so thank you for another great lesson!
Jodi, you are such a gift to me and I am tickled beyond words to have introduced this particular word to you!
And you are absolutely right about the way language drives a poem, including the turns it takes—whether it rhymes or not!
That's really helpful, Karen, thank you. Do you think scanning a line and the eyes then moving to the next line forces a kind of micro pause in the reader's mind? Dialects certainly do make a difference don't they; the Welsh accent I grew up among/with are very sing-song and without doubt have an effect on the reading of Welsh poetry and also affect how English poems are read by Welsh-speakers. Love the way Brooks reads her poem! I'd never have thought to read it that way :) It's so original and captivating.
I do think that reading a poem on the page allows us to see the break and that reading it aloud doesn’t. I think that’s why engagement is so more part of traditional poetry that uses rhyme scheme and regular meter. The meter and the end rhymes allow a reader to hear the end of a line when the poem is being read so the pause is less necessary, if that makes sense.
Yes, it very much does.
Soooo glad you've covered this poem, Karen, it's long been a favourite but I never had the tools for getting into and under the more technical aspects of it, which are a delight to read. It's a wonderful comfort to know that "God does not need our works or our gifts." Thank you! Back in the lockdown era I wrote a couple of devotional pieces each week for the church, this poem was the basis for one of them - https://thewaitingcountry.blogspot.com/2021/02/they-also-serve-joy-in-journey-89.html
I'm really looking forward to the series on PL - it's been on my must-read list for so long, I've made several attempts at it, getting beyond the first book but not much further, alas. Feels like the weekly encouragement here could be what I've been needing. I have it in hardback, in the Everyman Library series, which is a nice edition. Also looking forward to your book on calling, is it scheduled for publication yet?
Lovely devotional, Richard. Your phrase “enforced idleness” captures so much about those days of the lockdown and many of our days when we are sick or broken or weary.
I’m so glad you are going to come along the PL journey. I feel a little daunted myself, given the limitations of this form (as opposed to the dynamism of a classroom). But I’m excited to see what we and Milton can do!
That later in life Milton dictated his work to his daughters makes me wonder about the influence that they had on the process and the development of his thought.
I should mention that a scholar who specializes in Milton (I don’t) told me it’s not likely Milton dictated to his daughters. If he did, it was probably only the eldest. He did use scribes though. I can only imagine that for him (as many of previous ages) poetry was much more musical—in his ear and in his head. He may have been closer to Homer in that regard—certainly closer than we are following the age of print.
This poem has come up several times for me this year. It’s following me! It’s haunting me (in the best way—like A Christmas Carol) this week, and I keep coming back to it and to this post.
Two things: I keep thinking about Milton NOT titling it “On His Blindness,” and I think about how light is spent in ways not related to vision. I also keep thinking about patience interrupting! What a beautiful and unexpected idea. Months ago, I imagined patience as the Holy Spirit prompting. When I read it now, the lowercase has me thinking about patience personified in other ways, and I imagine it this week as the relationship between Milton and his Maker. I think of a life lived built on trust and prayer, and at the very thought of asking God if he “exacts day-labor, light denied” (another place I read light on another layer), Milton’s own personal history with God steps in to remind him of the Lord’s Kingly state and the character of God he so intimately knows.
I’m in awe of the beauty of this poem. Thank you for sharing!! And to think about what God actually did do with this vulnerable moment, light denied having no power here, I’m simply floored in the best way. I also love how he ends it on “Wait.” Full stop. I see Milton obeying here. He gives no reply to patience, and the implication is that he then stood in awe and waited.
Oh, wow! I love what you add to the poem with this observation about its ending and its lack of response to patience. And I love that this poem is haunting you. What a good ghost.
Karen, thank you for the explication and reflection on this beautiful, vulnerable sonnet.
That final line also reminds me of the story from one of the times King David was on the run. There was controversy in the ranks over how the soldiers who guarded the baggage should be rewarded relative to those who fought the battle.
“Then David came to the two hundred men who had been too exhausted to follow David, and who had been left at the brook Besor. And they went out to meet David and to meet the people who were with him. And when David came near to the people he greeted them. Then all the wicked and worthless fellows among the men who had gone with David said, “Because they did not go with us, we will not give them any of the spoil that we have recovered, except that each man may lead away his wife and children, and depart.” But David said, “You shall not do so, my brothers, with what the Lord has given us. He has preserved us and given into our hand the band that came against us. Who would listen to you in this matter? For as his share is who goes down into the battle, so shall his share be who stays by the baggage. They shall share alike.””
1 Samuel 30:21-24 ESV
As someone living with disabling chronic illnesses, I find those thoughts comforting in the Lord.
One question about “patience” here: in Milton’s day did it mean specifically a willingness to wait calmly, as we tend to use it now, or more broadly willingness to suffer with calm forbearance, the way it tends to be used in Scripture? Merriam-Webster inclines me toward the latter, but I don’t know what OED indicates.
What a beautiful passage from scripture that really connects to this theme! Thank you, Christina. I see it with fresh eyes through you.
Milton's understanding of "patience" would have reflected the classical understanding, I think, of virtue ethics. He would have known that the word in its etymology means "suffering" and that the virtue of patience is to bear suffering well. I have a whole chapter on this in On Reading Well.
Thank you for the additional info! I’ll look up that chapter specifically.
I’m excited to report that I have a very cool, prestigious, and hard-to-get (ha!) guest who has agree to author a post later in our series on Paradise Lost. The biggest draw, I think, was my description of the kind of engagement we have here from you, dear readers. The conversation here is so rich and I had to brag a little! Thank you, friends! And I can’t wait (some weeks/months from now) to share this guest entry from a renowned reader and writer! 😊