Without all hope of day! O first created beam, and thou great Word, And silent as the moon, Hid in her vacant interlunar cave. She all in every part; why was the sight 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 Their daily practice to afflict me more. O change beyond report, thought, or belief! As one past hope, abandon'd, In slavish habit, ill-fitted weeds Or do my eyes misrepresent? can this be he, Irresistible Samson? whom unarm'd 120 No strength of man or fiercest wild beast could withstand; Who tore the lion, as the lion tears the kid, Ran on imbattled armies clad in iron, And, weaponless himself, Made arms ridiculous, useless the forgery Of brazen shield and spear, the hammer'd cuirass, But safest he who stood aloof, When insupportably his foot advanc'd, 130 In scorn of their proud arms and warlike tools, Or grov'ling soil'd their crested helmets in the dust. A thousand fore-skins fell, the flower of Palestine 140 In Ramath-lechi, famous to this day: Then by main force pull'd 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; Thy bondage or lost sight Inseparably dark? Thou art become, O worst imprisonment! The dungeon of thyself; thy soul, 150 Which men enjoying sight oft without cause complain, Imprison'd now indeed, In real darkness of the body dwells Shut up from outward light, T' incorporate with gloomy night! For inward light, alas! Puts forth no visual beam. O mirror of our fickle state, By how much from the top of wondrous glory, To lowest pitch of abject fortune thou art fall'n. For him I reckon not in high estate, Whom long descent of birth Or the sphere of fortune raises: 160 170 But thee, whose strength, while virtue was her mate, Might have subdued the earth, Universally crown'd with highest praises. Sams. I hear the sound of words, their sense the air Dissolves unjointed ere it reach my ear. might, The glory late of Israel, now the grief, Matchless in We come, thy friends and neighbours not unknown, To visit or bewail thee, or, if better, Salve to thy sores: apt words have power to swage And are as balm to fester'd wounds. 181 190 Sams. Your coming, friends, revives me, for I learn Yet that which was the worst now least afflicts me, 200 This with the other should, at least, have pair'd, Chor. Tax not divine disposal: wisest men 210 220 Sams. The first I saw at Timna, and she pleas'd Me, not my parents, that I sought to wed The daughter of an infidel. They knew not That what I motion'd was of God; I knew From intimate impulse, and therefore urg'd The marriage on; that by occasion hence I might begin Israel's deliverance, The work to which I was divinely call'd. She proving false, the next I took to wife, O that I never had! fond wish too late! Was in the vale of Sorec, Dalila, That specious monster, my accomplish'd snare. I thought it lawful from my former act, And the same end, still watching to oppress Israel's oppressors. Of what now I suffer She was not the prime cause, but I myself, Who, vanquish'd with a peal of words, O weakness! Gave up my fort of silence to a woman. Chor. In seeking just occasion to provoke The Philistine, thy country's enemy, Thou never wast remiss, I bear thee witness: 230 |