When I Consider How My Light is Spent

“How Soon Hath Time” by John Milton (1630s)

The short lyric illuminates Sonnet XIX—here a young Milton is peevishly disappointed in how, already in his twenties, he has yet to accomplish the great things his education promised. He is educated, his family privileged, his talents impressive. Why am I not more of a big deal? The urgency here, really the frustration, is directed to his secular world and to his desperate feeling that time is passing him by. What is lacking is the voice of patience. Unlike this poem, Sonnet XIX is more reflective, a poem of a much older man who is coming to see that achievements do not impress God as much as faith.

“The Ebb and Flow” by Edward Taylor (1660s)

Among the most prominent second-generation Puritan poets in New England, Taylor, a devout acolyte of Milton, examines here the dilemma that Milton examines: how to handle the massive spiritual crisis of doubt, what to do when the soul is bent to Heaven but the heart, and even the intellect, cast genuine doubts and faith begins to ebb. The resolution that Taylor provides indicates Taylor’s much acknowledged debt to Milton: The soul calms the heart.