1st voice: when the speaker addresses to itself.

2nd voice: when the speaker addresses to another.

3rd voice: an imaginary character

Sonnet 18 (Shakespeare)
The poem is written in second voice, the speaker addressed to somebody with “thee”, as we can
see in the first line: “…Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? ...”
The mood is melancholic, admiration, especially at the end where death appears.
3) Summary: You (referring to his beloved) are more beautiful than a summer day and are free
from its accidents and exempt to death.
And your beauty will survive through death through my poem, as long as there will be men to
read it.
Summary: in the poem Shakespeare compares his love to a summer's day but suggests that all the
features of nature are too inconstant. Shakespeare suggests her beauty can live forever in the
poem he writes for her, which will outlast even death. The result of the poem is a sense of
optimism that a person's legacy can live on beyond their death.
Topic: we have to extract the idea of the poem, it is a question of mortality if human life.
The topic could be the opposition between the mortality of nature and eternity of art.
4) Topic: Ars longa, vita breuis (el arte es largo, la vida breve). Art world lasts longer than the
human life/nature world. Poetry will immortalize human beauty as long as there will be human
readers.
The division in parts could be done as it follows:
 The first part is the two first lines that are the introductory. We had a rhetorical question
of the superiority of beauty.
 The second part is from line 3 to line 8: these six lines talk about the nature mortality.
 The third part is from line 9 to line 12 that talks about the immortality of art.
 The fourth part is the last two lines, you have the restriction to that inmortality
(dependence on the life of human beings)

Sonnet 30 (Shakespeare)
The poem is written in first voice, the speaker addressed to itself.
The mood is of this sonnet would have to be renewed sadness
Sonnet 30 is a tribute to the poet's friend -- and likely his lover -- whom many believe to be the
Earl of Southampton. Sonnet 29 proclaims that the young man is the poet's redeemer and this
theme continues in the above sonnet.
The poem appears to be about a day when the speaker is so overwhelmed with emotion that
writing about it is the only way he can release it, and move on; it seems as though he left his
grief build up over time, and now it is bursting out of him. The theme of this sonnet would have
to be renewed sadness. The speaker uses various judicial metaphors to describe his grief. It was
common during Elizabethan England that sonneteers wrote as if they were older than they
actually were which is why this sonnet appears to be written by someone advanced in years. In
this sonnet, the speaker explores the fleeting and destructive power of Time, which can only be
contradicted by the power of love.
The topic could be the poet's sorrowful recollections of dead friends are sparked by the lover's
absence and can be quelled only by thoughts of his lover, illustrating the poet's dependence on
his dear friend for spiritual and emotional support.
Notice Shakespeare's use of partial alliteration over several lines to enhance the texture and
rhythm of the sonnet. Others could be cited, but here is one example:
When to | the Sess | ions of | sweet si | lent thought
I summ | on up | remem | brance of | things past...

Sonnet 60 (Shakespeare)
Sonnet 60 is a poem composed in first voice throughout the whole poem: the speaker speaks to
nobody in particular, though at the end of the composition it turns to second voice, concretely in
the last verse.
The mood is melancholic, as the poem’s thread follows the line of the tempus fugit aphorism;
however, the final couplet is written in a joyful tone; with a certain presence of hope.
The sonnet consists in a meditation on mortality, almost as an afterthought. The beloved is
mentioned in the final line as one who might be preserved from the total oblivion of time’s
destruction. This sonnet tries to explain the nature of time as it passes and as it acts on human
life.
Thus, the topic can be considered as a combination of time, death, man and the natural world.
This can be literary expressed with the formula tempus fugit; also, as it happened in Sonnet 19,
the poem also considers the immortality of art, concretely in the two last verses
The division in parts could be done as it follows:
 Part I: from line 1 to line 4. The speaker compares the minutes experienced by a human
during his or her lifetime to the waves of the sea. Each one goes one after the other. This
happens in the first quatrain.
 Part II: from line 5 to line 8. He uses the sun as a metaphor for human life until it reaches
its highest point, the proceeds to fall back into darkness or death. This happens in the
second quatrain.
 Part III: from line 9 to line 12. Time destroys perfection of youth. It is depicted as a
monster with its scythe. This happens in the third quatrain.
 Part IV: from line 13 to line 14. In the final couplet, he opposes his verses to time saying
that his verse will stand in times to come and will continue to praise the beauty of the
beloved despite of time’s cruel hand. Poetry, then, is considered by Shakespeare as a way
of cheating death.
Figures
Line 2 Metaphor “as the waves cyde forward” the tide
Line 5 Metaphor “crocked eclipses” the sun during the span of a day.
Line 10 Metaphor “delves the parallels”- becomes one of time as a personified force, a
ravaging monster, who digs trenches in beauty, devours nature, and mows down all that
stands with his scythe.
The first metaphor describes the way time parres. The second metaphor describes the way
human life passes. And the third metaphor describes how life is responsible for the ravages
(strage) in human life.
1st stanza ABBA

Sonnet 83 (Shakespeare)
The poem is written in secondo voice because the speaker is addressing to somebody.
Shakespeare, in his verses, had allowed Mr. W. H.'s excellences to speak for themselves,
despairing of rendering them adequately, and fearing lest he should impair them by eulogy. He
had been "dumb" and had "slept."
The mood is
The summary is the youth does not need to be described or painted (with cosmetics), but exceeds
what can be written about him. Therefore the poet has given up attempting to express the youth's
worth, so that the reality will show up the weakness of his poetry. The youth has objected to the
poet's silence, while the Rival Poet is writing, but the reality of the youth's beauty is much
greater than both poets could express.
The topic
The division of the poem
Sonnet 129 (Shakespeare)
This sonnet is written in first voice, is addressing to no-one, It is a meditation
The mood is fury-indignation, shame, resignation.
The summary: this poem deals with the idea of sexual desire, with lust as a lounging for future
pleasure, as it is consummated in the present and with lust as it is remembered after the pleasant
experience when it becomes the source of shame.
The speaker expresses his indignation at lust for its destructive effects both in social and
personal.
Topic: the inevitability of desire. Reason is beaten by desire. This is the human dilemma, the
existence between desire and sense:
2 Main parts 3 quatrains: desire him
1 couple: inevitability
Parts:
Line 1: Spirit=sexual energy shame= moral decay
Line 2: lust in action: physical act of intercourse driven only by lust. Action for somebody s
sexual intercourse-
Till action= until it achieves its goal
Line 3: just adjectives
Line 4:same
Line1-2 hyperbaton, should be read like this “ Lust in action… to point out what lust dees.
Alliteration “s” and “sh”
Repetition_ “lust”-“lust”
Enumeration= of adjectives lending to intensification.
Anaphore lust-action
Alliteration= liquids- movements, musically
Line 4-5 Antitesis= enjoy but despised
6-7 Paranomasia hunted.. hated (similar sound but diferent meanings)
Comparison – as a swallowed

Sonnet 130 (Shakespeare)

With a deftness of touch that takes away any sting that might otherwise arise from implied
criticism of other sonneteers, the poet satirises the tradition of comparing one's beloved to all
things beautiful under the sun, and to things divine and immortal as well. It is often said that the
praise of his mistress is so negative that the reader is left with the impression that she is almost
unlovable. On the contrary, although the octet makes many negative comparisons, the sestet
contrives to make one believe that the sound of her voice is sweeter than any music, and that she
far outdistances any goddess in her merely human beauties and her mortal approachability.
A typical sonnet of the time which uses lofty comparisons to praise a beloved idol is given
below. There are many others, and the tradition of fulsome praise in this vein stretches back to
Petrarch and his sonnets to Laura. E.g.
The way she walked was not the way of mortals
but of angelic forms, and when she spoke
more than an earthly voice it was that sang:

a godly spirit and a living sun

was what I saw, and if she is not now,
my wound still bleeds, although the bow's unbent.
Sonnet 144 (Shakespeare)
A sonnet that is considered by many to be the key to understanding Shakespeare's attitude to
love. It plays out the old battle between spiritual and physical love, a subject which had been the
jousting field of argument for centuries. The poet seems to ally himself with the traditionalists
who believed that the nature of woman was such as to corrupt pure love. In Platonic terms she
was the material dross of which bodies were made, but the spiritual ideal love was independent
of her, and true love could really only subsist between males. In terms of Christian theology,
woman was the devil and was responsible for the fall since she had tempted man to eat forbidden
fruit. Any form of congress with a woman was corrupting, and the ideal life would always be one
of chastity and abstention from sex. The doctrine was alleviated slightly by devotion to Mary, the
Mother of God, but despite giving birth she was a virgin and worshipped as the Blessed Virgin
Mary. A mitigation to this view was the reality of life itself, which always returned to insist that
the majority of men would continue to desire women.

The poet here follows the traditional line that woman is the female evil, her sexuality being a
threat not only to the poet who loves her, but also to the pure spirit of love of which his friend is
the icon. The battle is between heaven and hell, between the spirit and the body, and the body
seems to triumph over the spirit just as it does in Sonnet 129, and less agonisingly in 151. The
net result is that the poet is flung into a rage of jealousy and, like Othello, his imagination runs
riot as he thinks of what the lovers must have done together:
Lie with her? Lie on her? - We say lie on her when they belie her. - Zounds, that's fulsome. -
Handkerchief - confessions - handkerchief! - To confess and be hanged for his labour - first to be
hanged, and then confess! I tremble at it. Oth.IV.1.36-41.
This is the fevered imagination which guesses one angel in another's hell and broods with
frenzied misogyny on his sense of betrayal. But one presumes it had a less tragic outcome than
the Othello story.

John Donnel
The Good-Morrow
The poem is written in second voice because the speaker is addressing to his beloved. There are
grammatical indications throughout the whole poem (thou, thine, thee).
The mood consists in a clear enthusiasm which arises from having spent the first night with his
beloved. To understand the mood, we have to situate in the speaker’s situation, who is jubilant
after a night of happiness. The style is, because of its enthusiastic tone, full of hyperbolic
language; as Antonio Machado said, exaggeration is appropriate for love topics.
For the summary, it could be transcribed the following way: all past pleasures were unreal
compared to my present joy; and all past beauties I met, were but shadows of you. Now our
conscience is fully alert since we enter in a new life, absolute and self-sufficient, which excludes
the external world and reduces to itself. We are the two equal parts of our own world; if we
persevere in keeping the same intensity of love, the same homogeneity, we shall be immortal.
This poem is a hyperbolic description of the mood of one newly in love, who rejoices that his
passion is reciprocate; it dwells on the eternal nature of true love, which is eternal because of an
alchemic principle.
The topic could be stated as “true love is the beginning of eternal life”
For the part, we could create the following division. We have three stanzas: the first stanza is
told in past; the second stanza is told in present; the first four lines of the third stanzas are told
also in present; however, the three last lines are in future.
The poem is composed in something similar to a royal rhyme: ABABCCC. There us ab ete
rhyme in the first and the third verses. In the ninth and eleventh verses there is also an eye
rhyme, as well as in the nineteenth and twenty-first lines.

The Sun Rising

The poem is written in second voice because he is addressing the sun.
The mood is anger and (The last 4 lines) it is patronizing
Summary:
The speaker addressed to the sun angry because he and his love have been disturbed by the sun.
And he orders the son to call on others not on them because love does not admit any measure of
time. He is depreciating the power of the sun. The poet reduces the power of the sun in order to
give it to his cover and he reinforces the name of his lover who returns all power and glory.
Since the couple of lovers are the world, it implies that the rest is false. So he advises in a
patronizing was to limit his beauty and warm only the row of the lovers.

Topic:
The absoluteness of love. That love is free of time.

Parts:
Part A: 1st Stanza: Love is free of time.
Part B: 2nd Stanza: Love is absolute, the rest is false.
Part C: 3rd Stanza: Power, wealth and space.

Metric:
The entire poem is hyperbolic.
The three regular stanzas of “The Sun Rising” are each ten lines long and follow a line-stress
pattern of 4255445555—lines one, five, and six are metered in iambic tetrameter, line two is in
dimeter, and lines three, four, and seven through ten are in pentameter. The rhyme scheme in
each stanza is ABBACDCDEE.
Line 1 and 2: Personification, apostrophe, epithet, alliteration on /d/
Line 3: Anaphor, rhetorical question.
Line 4. Rhetorical question.
Lines 5 , 6. Enjambment.
Line 7. Epithets repetition.
Line 8. Periphrasis “harvest offices”.
Line 9. Anaphors.
Line 10. Enumeration, metaphor.
Lines 11., 12 Enjambment Rhetorical question.
Line 13. Paronomasia.
Lines 14, 15. Hyperboles.
Lines 16, 17, 18. Enjambment.
Lines 19, 20. Hyperbole, personification.

One of Donne’s most charming and successful metaphysical love poems, “The Sun Rising” is
built around a few hyperbolic assertions—first, that the sun is conscious and has the watchful
personality of an old busybody; second, that love, as the speaker puts it, “no season knows, nor
clime, / Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time”; third, that the speaker’s love affair
is so important to the universe that kings and princes simply copy it, that the world is literally
contained within their bedroom. Of course, each of these assertions simply describes figuratively
a state of feeling—to the wakeful lover, the rising sun does seem like an intruder, irrelevant to
the operations of love; to the man in love, the bedroom can seem to enclose all the matters in the
world. The inspiration of this poem is to pretend that each of these subjective states of feeling is
an objective truth.
Accordingly, Donne endows his speaker with language implying that what goes on in his head is
primary over the world outside it; for instance, in the second stanza, the speaker tells the sun that
it is not so powerful, since the speaker can cause an eclipse simply by closing his eyes. This kind
of heedless, joyful arrogance is perfectly tuned to the consciousness of a new lover, and the
speaker appropriately claims to have all the world’s riches in his bed (India, he says, is not where
the sun left it; it is in bed with him). The speaker captures the essence of his feeling in the final
stanza, when, after taking pity on the sun and deciding to ease the burdens of his old age, he
declares “Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere.”

Holy Sonnet 7
Donne tells the heavenly angels to fire up Judgment Day. Like the conductor of a symphony, he
commands them to blow their trumpets in all parts of the world. The trumpets will awaken the souls
of all dead people. The souls will be reunited with their bodies, like it says in the Bible.

Naturally, the collection of all deceased people in the world is going to include both good and bad
folks. According to the Christian tradition, on Judgment Day, the good will be separated from the
bad, which explains why the speaker wants everyone to wake up.

Then he tells God, essentially, "Wait, I didn't mean I wanted Judgment Day now. We've got to let
those dead people sleep for a bit." Also, the speaker wants time to mourn for the dead and for his
own sins. He worries that if he hasn't repented enough for his sins, he had better do his repenting on
earth, before it's too late.

He asks God to teach him how to repent so he can be in the goodcategory on Judgment Day. If God
would only teach him repentance, the effect would be the same as if God had signed a pardon with
his own blood. But here's the twist: according to Christian beliefs, Godalready signed this pardon
(metaphorically speaking) when he sent Jesus to earth to shed his blood for humanity's sins.
Holy Sonnet 10
Right off the bat, the speaker starts talking smack to Death, whom he treats as a person. He tells
Death not to be so proud, because he’s really not as scary or powerful as most people think. The
speaker starts talking in contradictions, saying that people don’t really die when they meet Death –
and neither will the speaker. Then, he really tries to burn Death’s biscuit by comparing him to "rest
and sleep," two things that aren’t scary at all. Next, to paraphrase Billy Joel, the speaker claims that
"only the good die young," because the best people know that death brings pleasure, not pain.

As if this isn’t enough trash-talk, the speaker kicks it up a notch, calling Death a "slave" and accusing
him of hanging out with those lowlifes "poison, war, and sickness." Besides, we don’t need Death –
the speaker can just take drugs, and it will have the same effect: falling asleep. So death is just a
"short sleep," after which a good Christian will wake up and find himself in Eternity. Once this
happens, it will seem like Death has died. How do you like them apples?

Andrew Marvell
To His Cow Mistress
The poem is written in second voice, for the speaker (supposedly, the poet) addresses to an
imaginary character, his mistress. Some grammatical references we can point out throughout the
whole poem in order to prove its second voice writing are “thou” (5), thine (14). “you” (19),
“your” (28), among others. The poem is clearly addressing to somebody very directly, exhorting
the addressed –in this case, the mistress— to do something.
According to the mood, the first twenty-first lines contain enthusiasm and irony(1-20)—he is
addressing a lady following the pattern of court love. She must be approached in a very humble
way, adoring and asking her very carefully. However, the poet follows this pattern very strictly,
which has an effect of irony. The second mood of the poem is pathetic, because he is talking
about how short our life is. However, at the middle of the second block, the mood becomes black
humor in a sarcastic way (21-32). In the last block of the poem (33-46), the poet encourages his
mistress with enthusiasm and anxiety. His speech is under the shadow of death and he needs to
escape from it.
The summary could be stated as it follows:
1. Had we time enough, I will love according to the amorous code. But time is short, I
perceive the approach of death, and I fear of dying before making love to you. So, let us
take advantage of our pleasure before death comes.
2. Had we time enough, I will love you according to the amorous code. However, time
chases us and neither your beauty, your virginity, your honor nor my lust will last
forever. Then now, while you are young, beautiful and strong, let us enjoy our love as
most as we can, give time’s unstoppable course.
3. We cannot stop time, so we are not allowed to enjoy our love, our company and our
bodies as long as we would like to. Time does not stop and your beauty, your virginity,
your honor, my strength and my lust are destined to end someday. We must enjoy now,
while you are young and I strong, because time goes on.

Given the summary’s outcome, the topic of the poem is not difficult to be guessed. The poet
is making a mixture of both tempus fugit and carpe diem. Latin aphorisms. Tempus fugit is
even metaphorically explicit in the metaphor presented at the beginning of the second part of
the poem, and carpe diem runs loose throughout the third. Given Andrew Marvell’s condition
 of known metaphysical poet, the topic of the poem can be easily extracted as it was in that
time when literature was digging up classical literature, concretely Roman’s.
The division in parts of the poem should be stated as it follows:
1. The first twenty lines consist in an explanation of tempus fugit, because the poet is
explaining his mistress how their love would evolve if they had time.
2. The second part of the poem covers from line 21 to line 33, where tempus fugit is
also the main character. Notice, however, that in line 26 appears carpe diem when the
poet starts introducing the element of death. Thus, the second part of the poem mixes
tempus fugit and carpe diem; however, the former is not realized yet.
3. From line 33 up to the end, the third part of the poem, carpe diem is fully realized.
The possibility of enjoying introduced in the second part is turned to be an explicit
reality in the last part of the poem. In fact, the word “now” concurs repeatedly in the
last block.
The poem is composed in rhyming couplets, from the beginning to the end. It is composed in
tetrameters. The comic effect is emphasized due to the fact that the rhymes are very short. The
poem consists in 46 lines divided in 23 couples. There are enjambments throughout the whole
poem. They also follow a logic pattern: the first one, condition (had we), the second one is
adversative (but), and the third one (now) is emphatic.

The Definition of Love

Summary:
The poem’s speaker is an anonymous lover who contemplates the nature and definition of love.
He begins by saying that his love is both “rare” and “strange” because it was “begotten by
Despair / Upon Impossibility.” He goes on to claim that only despair could reveal to him “so
divine a thing” as this love, because “Hope” could never come near it. He imagines that he
“quickly might arrive” where this love is leading him, but finds that his soul’s inclinations are
thwarted by Fate, who “drives iron wedges” between the speaker and the object of his affection.

According to the speaker, the problem is that Fate cannot allow “Two perfect loves” to come
together. Doing so would overthrow Fate’s power, so Fate has placed the two lovers into
physically separate spaces, like “distant poles” that can never come together. They must remain
separate, the speaker laments, unless “giddy Heaven” falls or the entire world is suddenly
“cramped into a planisphere.” The speaker then compares the lovers’ connection to two infinite
lines, each of which forms a perfect circle. Because these lines are parallel, though, they shall
never intersect. Therefore, the speaker concludes, Fate has enviously thwarted the love that binds
him to his beloved, and the only way they can be together is in a union of their minds.
Topic is exploration of love by depicting two perfect yet irreconcilable loves – the love of the
speaker, and the love of his lover.
Metrica:
The poem is composed of eight stanzas, each of which features four lines of iambic
tetrameter that rhyme alternately, in a pattern of ABAB, CDCD, and so forth.
The title in itself, highlighted by the apostrophes, supports the metaphysical subject of the poem.
The capitalisation of \'Definition\' puts emphasis on Marvell\'s attempt to categorise love. The
traditional rhyme scheme, ABAB, coupled with the continuous 8 syllable lines throughout all 8
stanza\'s creates a fixed form to the poem, which could suggest Marvell trying to put a logical
concept on the subject of love.
The title \"Definition of Love\" means he is trying to apply logic to an unlogicall concept: Love.
This is rather typical of a metaphysical poet.
It\'s quite significant that there is no mention of the subject of his love, but more the feeling of
love itself, its limitations and the concept itelf.
Marvell personifies both Hope and Fate, Hope is portrayed as beautiful (\'tinsel wing\') yet
feeble. Fate is portrated as \'jealous\' and \'tyrannic\'. However this tyranny prevails, and
fate \'crowds itself betwixt\', preventing them from ever living as lovers. If they had defied fate,
their love would have been so perfect they would have ruined fate.
The conceits used in this poem are also typical of a metaphysical poem. The first is of the
two \'poles\', evoking images of two separate poles in the world. Here he applies a geographical
distance between him and his lover to communicate the consequences of fate between them.
Perhaps circumstance or differences of status.
The structure used is also very interesting, in each stanza is a contained sentence. It puts forward
an argument. The idea of Marvell doing this is also reinforced by words that one may see in an
argument, like \"therefore\"

John Milton
Sonnet 7 – How Soon Hath Time
The poem is written in first voice because the speaker is addressing itself, talking about how time
is a thief who steals our youth.
The mood:
He portrays an atmosphere of frustration that aging is inevitable and that time is passing too
quickly. In the same section the atmosphere or mood created by the speaker is fearful and
disappointed. He is disappointed by his lack of achievements and that he hasn’t done as well as
he had hoped by the age of 23. Milton is worried that time is passing too quickly.
The summary
The surface meaning of the poem is that the speaker is contemplating the arc of is life on
this, his 23rd birthday. He knows that time is passing and decisions must be made at this
particular time. (”How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth”) Time is running out on
the speaker (“My hasting days fly on with full career), and he feels that he has little show for
his efforts thus far (“But my late spring no bud or blossom show’th). In light of all this, he
reflects on how quickly the last year has gone and how time is passing (“That I to manhood
am arrives so near) and his own personal sense of satisfaction is not yet apparent (And
inward ripeness doth much less appear.) The last six lines of the poem show the
speaker’s determination to continue his work. He knows that God is the one who ultimately
directs his steps, allots him his tasks, and determines the timing. Whether God has high or
low (”mean” in line 11) tasks planned for him, nothing is wasted.

The topic
The symbolic meaning of the poem is that individuals must make choices, critical
choices, about who they are and who they hope to be. These choices must reflect their
true sense of self and be the decisions with which there is complete confidence. The
reflection of our own essences, our own identities, is present with decisions we take that
reflect them. The belief in a higher power will validate or invalidate our decisions, so
making these choices with our true senses of self in mind is vitally important.
Parts
We can divide the poem in two parts according the rhyme pattern that represents two differents
beliefs. The first eight lines reflect questioning and doubt, while the last six lines reflects a
resolve and resolute nature. The rhyme pattern difference could be coincidental with the
change in tone. The imagery in the poem personifies time as a “thief,” something with
which there must be reckoning. This image is set against the “Taskmaster”, presumably a
higher force, that watches over everything. In terms of appreciation, I think you have to
examine and see if you accept the idea that our decisions have to reflect our true essence,
and there is a need to act on that as soon as we recognize it.
Metric
The poem is structured in a 14-lined sonnet. The rhyme pattern is distinctive. In the first
eight lines, the pattern is A-B-B-A. Note: “youth” goes with “show’th” and “truth” along with
“endueth.” This is complemented with “year,” “career,” “near,” and “appear.” The last six
lines follow a different format: C-D-E-D-C-E. It is almost as if the rhyme pattern represents
two different beliefs.
When I consider How My Light is spent
The poem is written in first voice, because the speaker is addressing to itself, so the character of
the poem is the poet himself.
The mood is woeful tone of loss because of increasing blindness and questions his God as to
why this happened to him and how it is possible to serve him by being thus.
It is doubtless a great blow to lose one of one’s senses and this poem shows Milton dealing with
this as best he can: through his writing. This poem was written by a deeply conflicted Puritan
man, a talented man who lost his independence as he lost his vision.

The summary:
Here's our summary: "When I think of how I have lost my vision even before middle age, and
how I am unable to use my best talent to serve God, I want to ask if God requires his servants to
work for him even if they don't have vision."

But before he can speak up, a figure called Patience answers his question. Patience is like, "You
think God needs your work? No, man. His best servants are the ones who bear life's burden the
best. He already has thousands of people running around across land and sea to serve him. You
can just stand right there and wait on him, and that's enough."
The topic is: blindness, the poet is shocked by his blindness; serving God, Milton places huge
emphasis on his relationship with God; and talent, he feels his poetic ability is a “gift” from God.
We can divide the poem in two parts:
The first part from line 1 to line 7 and half line before the word “Patience” because the poet
thinks that God will punish him for his blindness and then he believes blindness will prevent him
from serving God satisfactory.
The second part is from line 7 and a half from the word “Patience” because he realizes that God
rewards people who are patient with their problems if they have the right attitude.

Metric: Prosody is used throughout. Milton has a unified rhyme scheme abba-cddc-efg0efg.
Under further observation, the reader may notice that the last word of each stanza rhymes with
the first of the next: spent, present, need, and speed. Milton also uses the standard poetry form of
his time – the sonnet (which consists of fourteen lines).