Sonnet 19

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, and present
My true account, lest He returning chide;
“Doth God exact day-labor light denied?”
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 mild yoke, they serve Him best.  His state
Is kingly:  thousands at His bidding speed,
And post o’er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.

~John Milton, circa 1652

Close Reading of Sonnet 19

Serving God was probably the most important focus of Milton’s life.  His letters, school exercises, polemical tracts, and poems describe a rich, lifelong examination of best practices for personal and civic spirituality.  With each of these literary forms, different opportunities and constraints operated in the crafting of his message.  The political and religious tracts, what he called products “of my left hand” (“Reason of Church Government Urged Against Prelacy”),–that is, his irascible, prose-writing had–made blunt, timely work of addressing the erupting cultural issues of his day.  But, it is Milton’s poetry, written with a pen surely in his right hand, which soared high i spite of, or maybe by the grace of, each literary form’s stylistic constraints.