That one Talent which is death to hide / Lodged with me useless.
-- Speaker (Line 3 – 4)

Importance: This quotation is important for two reasons. First, it provides a clear encapsulation of the speaker's feelings of frustration, sorrow, and despair at his blindness. The use of the word "useless" reflects his self-image with both specificity and clarity (4). This is the primary focus of the first part of the poem, and so understanding the depth of these feelings is critical to the poem's meaning. The second important aspect of this quote is its religious allusions. This quote refers directly to the biblical Parable of the Talents. By doing so, Milton brings a biblical authority into his poem's arguments. He shows he has a deep knowledge of biblical texts that his ideas about religion are influenced directly by the ultimate source of religious authority (in Protestant belief), the Bible itself. For an early modern reader, this allusion would...