Oh John Milton, I Wish…

 

 

WHEN I consider how my light is spent

E’re half my days, in this dark world and wide,

And that one Talent which is death to hide

Lodg’d with me useless, though my Soul more bent

To serve therewith my Maker, and present

  My true account, least he returning chide,

Doth God exact day-labour, light deny’d,

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 milde yoak, they serve him best, his State

Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed

And post o’re Land and Ocean without rest:

They also serve who only stand and waite.

 

**

 

When I consider Dear Milton’s famous sonnet on his blindness I feel the sorrow of another man’s belief. Milton’s Protestantism was based in large part on the idea of Sola fides—the notion that faith alone was necessary for salvation. This is opposed to the Catholic belief in good works as a primary principle of divine forgiveness. I remember vividly the day some thirty years ago when I was in graduate school at the University of Iowa and the true suffering contained in this poem hit me for the first time. The “one Talent” which is death to hide is faith. Against this, the standard language of seeing as a metaphor for belief is impossible. I tried to imagine being that man. A man who was surrounded by political and theocratic enemies; who lived on charity; whose blindness had no ophthalmological explanation and so was fit for a superstitious and Calvinist interpretation. Against all this the poet imagines his sightlessness is a test of Sola fides. Imagine this burden. To me, They also serve who only stand and waite feels like the sensibility of an airline passenger who imagines his faith holds the plane aloft. There is no “milde yoak” here, no matter Milton’s use of wit. The poet believed his blindness was a test and I wish I could go back through time, like some science fiction character, and tell him God doesn’t live in a man or woman’s eyes. Blindness tests nothing. It is a native country without punishments.