Mary Archer

ENG 331, Sec. 2, Heberle

17 May 2015

Light and Blindness in Milton’s Most Personal Poems

17th century poet and prose writer John Milton’s three most personal poems are titled

“How Soon Hath Time” (1632) “When I Consider How My Light is Spent”(1652) and

“Methought I Saw My Late Espoused Saint” (1658). Each of these three Petrarchan sonnets deal

with a thing just shrouded from view: in the first, a life’s masterwork like Paradise Lost around

the corner; the second, a “talent” hidden in the ground; the third, Milton’s late wife (probably his

second, Katherine Woodcock) hidden and emerging from behind the veil. As his most personal,

the poems represent the poet in a guise unusual to him: anxious, uncertain and melancholy.

Milton’s sonnet “How Soon Hath Time” was written in 1632 with Petrarchan rhyme

scheme ABBAABBA CDEDCE. It first laments the loss of time that spurns him to a show of

outward growth, “his three and twentieth year,” (line 2) his “manhood am arrived so near,” (line

6), while his “inward ripeness doth much less appear” (line 7), but then he reckons in time his

outward and inward growth “shall be still in strictest measure even” (line 10), as befits the “will

of Heaven” (line 12). Thus though Milton appears anxious at the uneven distribution of his years

and his achievement (the former advancing over the latter), he is soon soothed by his confidence

in the broad prospective of his “great Taskmaster’s eye” (line 14) and content to make use of his

talent when the time is right.

The phrase which seems to stick out amongst the others is “inward ripeness.” The

syllable “in” of “inward” is both in “wing” (line 2) and “spring” (line 4), and the “n” sound of

“in” appears in “manhood”(line 6), “soon” (line 9) and “mean” (line 11). The syllable “ripe” has

an “i” sound in “Time” (line 1), “fly,” (line 3), “I” (line 6, 13),“arrived” (line 6) and “eye” (line

14). The syllable “ness” rhymes with “semblance” (line 5), “less” (line 7, 9), and “strictest”

(line10). Linking the sounds and the meanings together,“inward ripeness” has its “ripeness,” or

“spring,” upon the angel “wing” of Divine Will, and “manhood” (inner manhood) another

“spring,” is “soon” upon the “mean” of Time (“mean” being both “[low]” in line 11 and “even”

or average or adequate in line 10). Milton, “I,” will “fly” or be flied and “arrive” to right place

when the “Time” is “ripe.” And if Milton has the appearance or “semblance” of being “less” it is

by the “strictest” order of his Taskmaster’s eye.

From the first line, the words “How,” “soon” and “youth,” the first especially, have a

sound of guttural hurt, like the pain sound, “ow!” The “ow” sound conveys his great, weary

worry and anxiety, link a punch to the gut. The feeling of “ugh” gut punch continues with line 2,

the word “Stol’n.” The body feeling together is “oh oh oh, ow ow ow.” The pain of the “ow ” or

“oh” sound gets transformed in the poem, from the negative “no” (line 4) to then a little more

resignation in “that I to manhood am arrived so near” (line 6) in the word “so,” then to some

more resignation in “soon or slow” (line 9). Next, to complete acceptance in “however mean or

high” (line 11), as the “how” is repeated and signals trust now, and finally to the last “oh” sound,

in “so” (line 13). This “so” repeats the “so” of line 6 and contrasts with the “no” of line 4, as in

that line Milton saw “no bud or blossom shew’th” and now he expects God to send him “that

same lot, however mean or high” and the “grace to use it so” (line 13), that is, according to the

will of Heaven.

From the first line again, “How soon hath time,” the “th” sound of “hath” is painful to

say; it mimics the motion of biting down on one’s lip and blowing air out from one’s smouth in

abject frustration like “sssss I’m done with all this.” The “th” sound ends lines 1, 2, 4, 5, and 8,

spacing out in larger increments (“youth,” “shew’th,” “truth,” “endu’th”). When Milton finds

relief the end syllables of each line becomes open, the sound free (“slow,” “high,” “so,” “eye” in

lines 9, 11, 13, 14). And if the end syllables need to hold near the lip, the sound is much less

fricated (“even,” “Heaven.” in lines 10, 12).

Milton’s sonnet “When I Consider How My Light is Spent,” written in 1652, is a poem of

some uncertainty. Milton has just become sightless. He is forty-three (now at “half [his] days,”

line 2), and he feels his “one talent” (line 3), that of reading and writing, is “Lodged with [him]

useless” (line 4). Milton “fondly” (line 8) asks himself “Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?’

(line 7), an allusion to the line Jesus spoke to a blind man in John 9.4, “I must work the works of

him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.” Milton asks if “[he]

must work the works” of God when it is God who took his sight and his “one talent,” or “light,”

away. “Patience” answers Milton and says, God needs those “who best / Bear his mild yoke”

(lines 10-11), and those who best bear it have a good spot near God’s throne.

The words “lodged” (line 4) and “chide” (line 6) stick out on first reading. “Lodged” is

an “l” word like the word “light” is, which appears twice, and in the poem his “light” is his

“talent” and his “talent” is stuck somewhere in Milton where it is useless. So what is lodged in

him is his light, perhaps like his ability to investigate literature is compromised by the fog

shrouding his eyes. Interesting how his “talent” is both a concrete object, the master’s money the

servants lodge in the ground in the parable of the talents (Matthew 25.14-30), and an immaterial

object, “light.” The equation heralds the fact that Milton’s talent is his cognition, not his sight.

His skill of inward focus remains as bright as ever and as liquid transcendent of bounds as

“light” is. His talent, the money of the parable, is not “spent” (line 1) as in gone to waste; his

talent is “spent” as in exchanged for a good of another kind: his eyes of the present moment, the

ability to see, for eyes of the unseen eternal, the room of his king’s (God) throne. Milton

transports himself from a room where he isn’t able to see the furniture to a room in a time when

his ability to see is restored, after death. and he is able to see the chair and thus feel and be near

the presence of his master. The scene changes from the inside dark of Milton’s body where his

“talent” is trapped, “lodged,” undiscovered, to a room of heaven’s light where his worth is

acknowledged as he is permitted to “stand and wait” (14) nearest the throne, as a one who best

bore the “mild yoke.”

The word “lodged”stops the throat like a stifled sob and contracts the area of the

diaphragm to its fullest extent and holds it there uneasy. Yet the sound of “lodged” is similar to

the sound of the word “God,” repeated twice in lines 7 and 9. So the sense of the words together

is that the talent lodged in him is God’s, and since it is God’s his talent is known, clear, as God’s

omnipresence does not allow Milton to bury the token away in the confines of his body or to lay

lodged, stuck in his throat and diaphragm, since Milton’s body is God’s, too. Milton cannot hide

any talent in the chamber of his body, or exclude himself from presence of God’s sight, or avoid

the fact that to see God is to see with the mind, and such fact is unchanged though sight be lost.

The end line word “chide” (line 6) of course rhymes with the end line words of lines 2, 3

and 7 (“wide,” “hide,” and “denied,” respectively) according the Petrarchan sonnet rhyme

scheme ABBAABBAC CDECDE. The word outstrips the others because the combination of it’s

beginning hard “ch” sound that forces air through the teeth and it’s open “i” in “ide” sound that

moves the jaw low is striking. Of the poem, “chide” forces the jaw lowest. Contenders are

“denied” and “replies” (line 9). The qualities or the muscularity of the word “chide” makes clear

the uncertainty, the disapprobation Milton felt for himself, felt from God, and felt for God in first

giving him the talent of a mind for literature and then giving him the very disability that would

seem to make Milton’s aptitude a “useless” (line 4) trait. The way the word opens the mouth

opens the space for a full yell, and one feels the delivery and vocal tone would be one of “loud or

impassioned utterance to anger, displeasure . . . reproof,” as Oxford English Dictionary (OED)

suggests, or further, a voice to “scold, rebuke or find fault with.” Indeed, most would consider

Milton justified in “finding fault” with God’s use of him. Yet Milton considers the resulting

question referred to earlier, ‘Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?’ “fond” or foolish, and his

will to come into alignment with God and the make the best of his situation is marvellous.

Milton’s “Methought I Saw My Late Espoused Saint” written in 1658 is a Petrarchan

sonnet with rhyme scheme ABBAABBA CDCDCD, a variation on the usual sestet form

CDECDE or CDEDCE. The poem is probably to Milton’s second wife, Katherine Woodcock,

who died in childbirth. The poet has just had a vision of her and it is sweet; he sees her as

“Alcestis from the grave (line 2), dressed in white, “pure as her mind” (line 9), her face of “love

sweetness, goodness” (line 11) to his “fancied sight” (line 10), “fancied” for in his blindness he

never saw it. However, when he wakes the vision leaves and the “night” (line 14) of her absence

hits hard. Milton’s variation enables the weight of his grief to slam with more force, as the end

rhyme of line 12 parallels the end rhyme of line 14 with the extremes of full satisfaction,

“delight,” and darker despair, “night.”

The first allusion to an Alcestis is to Alcestis, wife of Admetus, of Euripides’ Alcestis.

Alcestis is dead and buried somewhere in the underworld, and Hercules, “Jove’s great son” (line

3) restores her to her husband. The reference to Jove gives the line the sense that it was by Jove’s

decree that Hercules rescue the woman. A Jove of another spirit is mentioned in line 6 when “the

old law,” the Mosaic Law, is mentioned. The “old law” in mention is from Leviticus 12.2-8

which “prescribed periods for the purification of women after childbirth (eighty days for a

daughter),” as the footnotes of The Norton Anthology for British Literature footnotes on page

1829 describe. Milton and his wife followed God’s decree and waited eighty days as affirmed by

the lines “Mine, as whom washed from spot of childbed taint, / Purification in the old law did

save” (lines 5-6), and their obedience will act like Hercules and bring Woodcock to Milton as

Admetus standing in heaven, to see “Full sight of her in heaven without restraint” (line 8).

This afterlife meeting Milton will “trust to have” (line 7), but unlike Admetus, he will not

have the satisfaction of a living breathing Alcestis to greet him in the morning, besides the

momentary apparition of her ghost or the connection with the purity of her mind either in his

memory or, one may think, his spiritual unconscious. The relation of Alcestis and Admetus gives

a sense of Milton’s utter belief, momentary as it may have been, in the presence of his wife

because in the Classical mythopoetic world resurrection was absolutely possible; Alcestis never

died, her soul was merely alive in another location beyond the river Styx, a river a demigod like

Hercules could physically travel. Milton likewise believes in the aliveness of Woodcock’s soul,

though he lacks the Greek sense of simplicity in the movement of Alcestis from the covert

physical location, Hades, to another physical location, the overt daily sphere of living. Though he

believes Woodcock somewhere exists, it does not take a simple river crossing to meet her. To

Milton in his Christian belief that river is non-existent, and the chasm that separates her world

and his is as wide and bottomless as his grief, like the void world expressed in his use of the

word, “night” (line 15).

The sound of the word “vested” in the line she “Came vested all in white, pure as her

mind” (line 9) gives another sense of Milton’s sense of rapture, his momentary yet complete

belief in the presence of his wife. The word knocks the chest up with the sudden simultaneous

contraction of the stomach and the raising of the diaphragm. With the uplift of the chest one gets

the sense that Milton gets his heart again knocked in; to walk chest up is to walk with optimism,

and the upward motion corresponds with the resurrection of “Alcestis from the grave,” and one

can say Milton’s is another heart reborn.

“Vested” has rhyme with Alcestis. According to OED, “vested” could mean in one sense

“invested,” to store into an account with the intention of further gain. Alcestis is stored into her

grave and will be retrieved later for greater happiness between the married couple. When

Woodcock comes Milton’s breast is “vested,” or full of stored feeling and the expectation of later

(and ongoing) fulfillment, such as the import of the words “yet once more I trust to have full

sight of her in heaven” in the preceding lines 7 and 8. “Trust” is very much like the financial

term “investment,” to expect full gain in confidence by way of securement. “Vested” also has

rhyme with “espousèd” (line 1) and to be espoused is to be betrothed, another kind of contract

and surety whereby Milton is linked to Woodcock by sacred law.

Then there is of course the OED definition of “vested” as “clothed, robed, dressed, spec.

in ecclesiastical vestments.” From the first line Woodcock is a “saint,” and from the second line

she is Alcestis, whom “Jove’s great son” may retrieve (a nice union of Christian and classical

terminology and figures there), in both senses she is endowed with divine blessing. And being a

saint means she is a great benefactress, and one gets the sense Milton was her benefacted,

perhaps because she loved a one without sight. The benefit received is her light. She gives him

vision. When she is gone there comes his “night,” the dark of his blindness. To see and to have

day is to feel “Love, sweetness, goodness,” and to be blind and to have night is to have the

absence of those qualities, felt in the discord of despair.

Before his blindness and after, in 1652, Milton excelled at choosing the choice word to

express the depth of his hurt, reproach, or delight, in such words like “how,” “chide,” and

“vested.” Each word sounds like the emotion they carry by their open vowels, fricative

phonemes, or simply by the punch they pack in their bodily expression, like how “vested”

invests the chest with upward rising heart. Because of his blindness Milton became an

exclusively oral poet at forty-three, at “half [his] days,” and one can think the absence of one

sense enabled the fuller use of two others, the aural and the kinesthetic.

Although the “how” in “How Soon Hath Time” has shows Milton’s aural and kinesthetic

sensitivity in that “how” sounds like the pain sound “ow,” his later use of the word “vested” in

“Methought I Saw My Late Espoused Saint” shows a much greater aptitude because the single

word illustrates the upward movement of “Alcestis from the grave,” and the vestment of

Milton’s breast with new fortitude, and the trust Milton has to see Woodcock in heaven. Thus

when Milton becomes blind a second and even third time, with the first death of his light

Woodcock and then the second death of her ghost, he becomes even more aware of how to link

the aesthetic experience of his pain-and-hope-wracked body and the expertise of his classical

mind together in the choice sound of a word.