An author alluded to this trait by comparing himself to Thamyris and Maeonides, writing that "those other two equal'd with me in Fate, so were I equal'd with them in renown." For 10 points each:
[10m] Name this trait that inspired an author's twenty-second sonnet, which begins "Cyriack, this three years day," and a poem that notes, "God doth not need either man's work or his own gifts."
ANSWER: John Milton's blindness [prompt on blindness or losing sight with "Who went blind?"]
[10e] Milton had been blind for over a decade when he began work in 1656 on this epic poem about the fall of Adam and Eve.
ANSWER: Paradise Lost
[10h] In Milton's sonnet "When I Consider How My Light is Spent," a personification of this concept tells Milton, "They also serve who only stand and wait." This concept and "Cleanness" title poems by the Pearl Poet.
ANSWER: patience
<Kurtis Droge , Literature - British poetry>