When I Consider How My Light Is Spent

Even from the title of the poem, I knew that this was going to be one that I would enjoy. I was right. Out of all the poems we have read in this class thus far, this is my favorite.
This poem expresses the concerns and frustrations one might have when it becomes almost physically impossible to use the talents you've been given, especially when one believes it to be a sin to "bury" your talent. Milton refers to the parable of the Talents found in the bible, which basically teaches that if you are given a talent and you don't use it, you're sinning against God.
Milton had lost his sight, or was beginning to lose it, when he wrote this poem. It gives you a look into the hopelessness he may have been feeling. I love the line, "Doth God exact day-labor, light denied." A valid question, indeed. Will you be punished for not using your talent, when the means of doing so have been taken away from you? Then comes the response from Patience (hint, hint), "God doth not need either man's work or his own gifts," (A very humbling sentence, if I may say.) "who best bear his mild yoke, they serve him best." When translating this in my head, it kind of came out like this: "listen, God doesn't NEED your talents. He doesn't profit from them, he's God. If he gives you the talent of writing, and you don't write the best novel in the entire world, he's not going to fault you for it, especially when you've gone blind. All he asks is that you try."
I realize that that is ironic, seeing as how Milton's Paradise Lost is considered one of the best pieces of work ever written.....but I think it is applicable to what he was feeling at the time, and what a lot of us feel when we are in a situation where we can't seem to do what we feel we need to.
It's also nice to think of what happens after he wrote this poem. He did try, and boy did he succeed. He continued to write great things. I can't help but think of one of my favorite scriptures in the Book of Mormon that says, "...the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them..."

I loved his use of the words "light" and "dark" obviously referring to his ability to see. Instead of using the word "light" and "spent" in the title, change it to this, When I Consider How My Sight Is Gone. Then in the second line, "ere half my days, in this dark world," which is referring to his eyesight failing him. Milton paints a sad stage in the first three lines of the poem. First with light being gone, then using the word "dark" in the second line, and "death" and "hide" in the third. A pretty genius use of imagery there.

Great poem. :)