Question

The Blind Boy Summary

Answer 1

Answer:

O say what is that thing call’d Light,

Which I must ne’er enjoy;

What are the blessings of the sight,

O tell your poor blind boy!

You talk of wondrous things you see;

You say the sun shines bright:

I feel him warm, but how can he

Or make it day or night?

My day or night myself I make

Whene’er I sleep or play;

And could I ever keep awake

With me ’twere always day.

With heavy sighs I often hear

You mourn my hapless woe;

But sure with patience I can bear

A loss I ne’er can know.

Then let not what I cannot have

My cheer of mind destroy;

Whilst thus I sing, I am a king,

Although a poor blind boy.

Colley Cibber

Summary

Stanza 1

The speaker in the poem is blind boy himself. He asks the others to help him understand what is “Light” which he has often heard other saying.  It is something which he can never enjoy. Nor all those blessings which light has.  

Stanza 2

In stanza 2, the blind says that people often “talk of wondrous things” which they see with their eyes. The people often say that “the sun shines bright”. However he can only feel it (which is warm). But he wonders how a sun can “make it day or night. The lines are quite profound and express a blind person’s unfamiliarity with the day and dark as everything is dark for him.

Stanza 3

The blind boy says that unlike others, he himself makes his day as well as night. When he sleeps, it is night for him and whenever he awakes and plays, it becomes his day. The day never goes away until he keeps awake or playing.

In these lines for the first time, the blind boy seems to be proud of his blindness rather than sorry for his condition.

Stanza 4

The blind boy says the he feels quite sorrowful and grieved when he listens to the cries of others for his miserable condition (It is through their mourns, he comes to know that he is miserable).  

According to him, he has patience and hence will be able to bear a loss (of his eyesight) which he can never imagine or experience as he has never seen light or the world.

Stanza 5

In the final stanza, the blind boy requests others not to destroy his happiness by taking and mourning about something which he can never have (i.e. eyesight). He asks them to let him sing that he is a king of his little dark world though in reality he just “a poor blind boy”.

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