Lost in the Dark of Enlightenment

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-labour, 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.”

~Sonnet 19: John Milton~

I ran across this poem while reading an article on living with a chronic disease.  I never learned much about poetry in school, my English teachers (or more likely the overseers of the curriculum) thought a heavy emphasis on Modern Lit and Higher Criticism were of much more benefit to our mental development; it must have worked because everybody on social media now has an opinion about everything and each and every one of them is right and Heaven help you if you think to tell them otherwise.  I guess from that vantage point, this poem can mean exactly what you want it to, but then what is the point of writing, poetry, stories, or anything at all?  If I'm just discovering something I already know, of what benefit is that to me or anyone else?  But if I take it as a meditation by Milton on his recently acquired blindness and what that means for the work he intended to do for God's glory, it might actually mean something after all.

But then this is also the age wherein we tell God who/what He/She/They is or is not and what said deity will do for us including the when and the how.  And when that doesn't happen, we simply declare God irrelevant, if not a fairy tale, and move on with our more enlightened lives.  Do we even have the mental capacity to understand a poem like this?  I did google the poem and came across the wikipedia entry, which had nothing under 'meaning' except to mention the Talent mentioned was referencing the Biblical parable of the Talents, not Milton's ruined tap-dancing career.  Wikipedia hardly ever shies away from explaining everything else, but here we have perhaps one of the most famous sonnets from a renowned poet and yet there is silence?  I am hoping their silence only means they do not wish to give students an easy answer for their poetry homework, but I fear it is simply more higher criticism: they can't give a meaning because only you can do that because their meaning wouldn't be right for you and therefore it would be wrong, or at least grievously insensitive to you the reader.  What about Milton?

The poor man has lost his sight and now an entire civilization is losing its mind!  He wrote this sonnet for a reason and that reason is lost upon modern readers.  We who can tell poets what their poetry really means and God who He is and expect Him to take us seriously: the pot telling the potter who to be!  Milton suffered a mild case of hubris, thinking he could do anything great for God that God could not do for Himself or one of His thousands of other servants couldn't do better, sighted or not.  We treat God as the servant and think Him blind when He fails to do our bidding.  Creatures of dust believing the ancient lie that 'ye can be gods!'  But today we don't even question it, rather we question a master poet and tell him what he means.  Though blind, Milton could truly see, we are the ones who grope in darkness and know it not.