Irrecoverably dark, total eclipse Without all hope of day! O first-created beam, and thou great Word, And silent as the Moon, When she deserts the night, Hid in her vacant interlunar cave. 90 She all in every part, why was the sight To such a tender ball as the eye confined, So obvious and so easy to be quenched, And not, as feeling, through all parts diffused, That she might look at will through every pore? By privilege of death and burial, From worst of other evils, pains, and wrongs; But made hereby obnoxious more To all the miseries of life, Life in captivity Among inhuman foes. But who are these? for with joint pace I hear O change beyond report, thought, or belief! As one past hope, abandoned, In slavish habit, ill-fitted weeds Or do my eyes misrepresent? Can this be he, Irresistible Samson? whom, unarmed, No strength of man, or fiercest wild beast, could withstand; Who tore the lion as the lion tears the kid; And, weaponless himself, Made arms ridiculous, useless the forgery Of brazen shield and spear, the hammered cuirass, But safest he who stood aloof, When insupportably his foot advanced, In scorn of their proud arms and warlike tools, Spurned them to death by troops. The bold Ascalonite 130 140 Or grovelling soiled their crested helmets in the dust. The jaw of a dead ass, his sword of bone, A thousand foreskins fell, the flower of Palestine, In Ramath-lechi, famous to this day: Then by main force pulled up, and on his shoulders bore, The gates of Azza, post and massy bar, Up to the hill by Hebron, seat of giants old No journey of a sabbath-day, and loaded so— Like whom the Gentiles feign to bear up Heaven. 150 Thy bondage or lost sight, Inseparably dark? Prison within prison Thou art become (O worst imprisonment!) The dungeon of thyself; thy soul (Which men enjoying sight oft without cause complain) In real darkness of the body dwells, Imprisoned now indeed, Shut up from outward light To incorporate with gloomy night; For inward light, alas! Puts forth no visual beam. O mirror of our fickle state, Since man on earth, unparalleled, The rarer thy example stands, By how much from the top of wondrous glory, Strongest of mortal men, 160 To lowest pitch of abject fortune thou art fallen. 170 Whom long descent of birth, Or the sphere of fortune, raises; But thee, whose strength, while virtue was her mate, Might have subdued the Earth, Universally crowned with highest praises. Matchless in might, Sams. I hear the sound of words; their sense the air Salve to thy sores: apt words have power to swage And are as balm to festered wounds. Sams. Your coming, friends, revives me; for I learn Now of my own experience, not by talk, How counterfeit a coin they are who 'friends' Bear in their superscription (of the most I would be understood). In prosperous days They swarm, but in adverse withdraw their head, Yet that which was the worst now least afflicts me, Chor. Tax not divine disposal. Wisest men 180 190 200 210 Why thou should'st wed Philistian women rather At least of thy own nation, and as noble. Sams. The first I saw at Timna, and she pleased Me, not my parents, that I sought to wed 220 That what I motioned was of God; I knew That specious monster, my accomplished snare. And the same end, still watching to oppress Who, vanquished with a peal of words, (O weakness!) Chor. In seeking just occasion to provoke The Philistine, thy country's enemy, Yet Israel still serves with all his sons. 230 Thou never wast remiss, I bear thee witness; 240 Sams. That fault I take not on me, but transfer On Israel's governors and heads of tribes, Who, seeing those great acts which God had done Acknowledged not, or not at all considered, Used no ambition to commend my deeds; The deeds themselves, though mute, spoke loud the doer. To count them things worth notice, till at length Their lords, the Philistines, with gathered powers, 250 Into their hands, and they as gladly yield me 260 Bound with two cords. But cords to me were threads Touched with the flame: on their whole host I flew Unarmed, and with a trivial weapon felled And by their vices brought to servitude, Whom God hath of his special favour raised Chor. Thy words to my remembrance bring Had dealt with Jephtha, who by argument, 270 280 For want of well pronouncing Shibboleth. Sams. Of such examples add me to the roll. 290 Me easily indeed mine may neglect, But God's proposed deliverance not so. Chor. Just are the ways of God, And justifiable to men, If any be, they walk obscure; Unless there be who think not God at all. For of such doctrine never was there school, But the heart of the fool, And no man therein doctor but himself. Yet more there be who doubt his ways not just, 300 As to his own edicts found contradicting; Then give the reins to wandering thought, As if they would confine the Interminable, And tie him to his own prescript, Who made our laws to bind us, not himself, Whomso it pleases him by choice From national obstriction, without taint Of sin, or legal debt; For with his own laws he can best dispense. He would not else, who never wanted means, 310 |