I think "When I Consider How My Light is Spent" is a wonderful, poignant sonnet in which the poet explores his own grief over his blindness and expresses his fear that it will mean that he will be unable to use his abilities as he had hoped he would be able to. However, and this is the important part of the poem, he finds immense consolation in the idea that patient endurance of his limitations and trying to wait to see how he can serve God's will are just as important as being successful in the exploits of which he had dreamed. Note what the poem says:
"God doth not need
Either man's work or His own gifts. Who best
Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best."
The enduring message about blindness seems to be that it does not prevent us from serving God, and that no matter what state we find ourselves in, whether blind or subject to some other limitation, what God wants us to do is to learn to "Bear His mild yoke" and wait and serve him patiently in the situation that we find ourselves. As much of a tragedy as Milton's blindness was, this poem is testament to the way that blindness does not make us less of a person to ourselves or to God.
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