Poor old John Milton (1608-1674) was probably only in his late forties when he went blind, having had a tumultuous life up until then.

He was a Puritan and a propagandist both for Oliver Cromwell’s Republic and the regicides, using his impressive linguistic skills to write and translate for the revolutionary cause.

I bitterly envy those campaigning years of his, which must have stretched his capacity for languages and the mother tongue to the limit.  It calls to mind what Wordsworth - who revered and echoed Milton - wrote of the French Revolution:

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,

But to be young was very heaven!

Milton hoped for Paradise on earth and put his shoulder to the wheel to make it happen.  But after the death of Oliver Cromwell in 1658, the Republic crumbled; the Restoration of the Monarchy meant Milton had to go into hiding, and it was only through influential friends that he escaped life imprisonment or worse.  A defeated, impoverished existence followed, made worse by a gradual loss of sight.

Satan Calling up His Legions by William Blake; National Trust, Petworth House

Nonetheless, during his two decades of blindness up until death, he wrote his best poetry, including the masterpiece “Paradise Lost”.  Protegés, assistants and his own daughters were enjoined to take down what he dictated.  His relationship with his daughters was poor – apparently he expected them to take dictation in languages they didn’t understand, and was angered by their inability to do so.  Shockingly, he then disinherited them.

Milton’s nephew and first biographer Edward Phillips said that the poet’s third wife, Elizabeth Mynshull, “oppressed his children in his lifetime, and cheated them at his death.”  Perhaps it was the work of their stepmother to drive a wedge between them; but perhaps, as a grumpy old man, he lost patience with them.  Perhaps they lost patience with him.  And yet in the midst of all this family angst, the most sublime poetry was produced.

Our dog, Wolfie, is in the last years of his life at thirteen, and is almost completely blind.  You can see the milkiness of glaucoma in his eyes.  It’s a sad thing that such a beautiful, bounding dog should be reduced to this.  Border terriers like him were bred to run all day with the hunt.  They rarely bark.

Wolfie has taken to issuing a single bark when he needs help – a loud, high-pitched yelp.  He will stand motionless in the middle of our small garden and yip as if he’s forgotten the way home to the back door.  His urgent need has made him more demanding, yet I jump to it.  Indoors I don’t like to see him bump his head, so I rearrange the furniture to clear his path.

It makes me think that perhaps we have pets so that we can learn to grow old ourselves.  A terrier’s life is packed into a dozen or so years, like a telescoped version of our own.  Wolfie’s legs are wobbly, and sometimes they collapse under him.  On other days, he bounds through long grass like a lamb.

Sonnet 19: When I consider how my light is spent

by JOHN MILTON

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.”

Biographer Claire Tomalin wrote a beautiful piece about John Milton for The Guardian.