to be patient with life and its many troubles and to have faith in God's will no matter how harsh those troubles might be. Milton describes this as standing and waiting:

His [God's] 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.

Servants stand at attention by a king generally to do whatever bidding he might require, be it slight or great. Milton now views himself from such a perspective, and in offering such an account, he justifies God's ways regarding the suffering and service of human beings.

In "On His Blindness," Milton alludes to the parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14–30. In the parable, a rich man about to embark upon a journey entrusts his property to his three servants. While their master is away, two of the servants double the value of the property they were given and are suitably rewarded upon the rich man's return. However, the third servant plays it safe and does nothing with what he's been given. Upon discovering this, the rich man is angry and takes the property away from him. The parable is meant to illustrate Christ's message that Christian believers should develop their God-given abilities to the full; they must be prepared to take risks in the service of their faith.

In Milton's poem, he expresses concern that he will not be able to use his God-given talent—writing—now that he's gone completely blind. The last thing he wants is to be cast into outer darkness, where there will be, in the words of the Bible, "weeping and gnashing of teeth." Yet Milton needn't have worried, for a soothing voice from heaven quickly assures him that those who bear their burdens serve God best. Milton's blindness means that he does not need to serve God by the development of his talents; he can do so by patiently accepting his condition.

"On His Blindness" is one of Milton’s best-known sonnets, and it expresses the poet’s feelings on losing his sight and how this makes him feel about his innate talent. In the poem, Milton's speaker, a version of Milton himself, imagines himself engaging in a discussion with the abstract concept of patience. This is an example of personification.

Personification is a rhetorical device which involves attributing human characteristics or powers to something that is not human. In this instance, Milton uses personification to help himself deal with the fact that he is going blind. Because he feels that he has no patience for his situation, he tries to imagine patience as a benevolent figure who is capable of speaking to him and encouraging him to be content with waiting. The final lines of the poem represent the words Milton imagines patience would say to him, if patience could speak. The figure of personified patience tells Milton that he need not worry about not being able to offer God the labor he usually can—God does not exact this sort of work from all those who follow him. Patience says, “They also serve who only stand and wait.” That is, Milton need only align himself with God's will, which in his current case means waiting.

The poetic devices used in "On His Blindness" include alliteration, assonance, hyperbole, allusion, and personification.

Milton's best-known sonnet has a mellifluous stateliness which is achieved partly by the extensive use of alliteration in phrases like "dark world, and wide" or "patience, to prevent." The poet also employs assonance in such phrases as "post o'er land and ocean without rest."

The poet illustrates the vital importance of his poetic gift in his life with the hyperbolic statement that it is "death to hide" this talent. There is also a biblical allusion in this phrase, referring to the parable of the talents in Matthew 25: 14–30. In this story, three servants were entrusted with money by their master, and two of them increased its value by careful investment, while the third hid the money, burying it in the ground.

Finally, Milton also creates a dialogue while maintaining a sense of isolation by personifying the figure of "patience," who replies to his complaint.

The poem "On His Blindness," also known as "When I Consider How My Light Is Spent" by John Milton, was written by the poet after he became blind. It is mainly a reaction to his blindness and a statement of the dilemma of how Milton can serve God in spite of it. The poet writes of living in a "dark world and wide," an allusion to the fact that he can no longer see. The talent that he can no longer use, or so he thinks, is his writing. He feels that his writing is the method by which he serves God.

To express his despair at his inability to write, he refers to the parable of the talents that Jesus tells in the Book of Matthew, chapter 25, in the New Testament of the Bible. In the parable, a rich man traveling into a far country first gives his servants various amounts of money, referred to as talents. When the rich man returns, he rewards the servants who invested their talents, but he casts out the servant that buried his talent. The rich man is a representation of God. Milton is concerned that, although it's not his fault that he has become blind, God will judge his efforts to be insufficient. He asks God if even though he is "light denied," or blind, he is still required to work for him.

The answer comes via a personified Patience. In answer to Milton's question, Patience replies that God does not require "either man's work or his own gifts." Instead, God asks that humans "bear his mild yoke." This is in reference to another saying of Jesus in Matthew, chapter 11, when he calls to those who labor and are heavy-laden and promises to give them rest if they will take upon them his yoke, for his yoke is easy and his burden light. (A yoke is a collar that is put on oxen.) Jesus is saying that if people accept the will of God and do what he says, their tasks will not be difficult to accomplish.

In the poem, Milton acknowledges this when he writes that some people's duty is to move over land and ocean without resting while others are called upon to "stand and wait." According to the poem, God does not demand that people fulfill tasks they find impossible. He asks only submission, and then he gives the devoted tasks that they are then able to accomplish.

As a footnote, John Milton went on to compose some of his greatest works after he became blind.