So many, and so huge, that each apart Light, the prime work of God, to me is extinct, Annulled, which might in part my grief have eased. Of man or worm, the vilest here excel me: 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. 70 80 90 And almost life itself, if it be true That light is in the soul, She all in every part, why was the sight So obvious and so easy to be quenched, 100 And buried; but, O yet more miserable! By privilege of death and burial, From worst of other evils, pains, and wrongs; To all the miseries of life, Life in captivity Among inhuman foes. But who are these? for with joint pace I hear Chor. This, this is he; softly a while; O change beyond report, thought, or belief! As one past hope, abandoned, In slavish habit, ill-fitted weeds Or do my eyes misrepresent? That heroic, that renowned, 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; Ran on embattled armies clad in iron, And, weaponless himself, Made arms ridiculous, useless the forgery Of brazen shield and spear, the hammered cuirass, Chalybean-tempered steel, and frock of mail Adamantean proof: But safest he who stood aloof, 130 When insupportably his foot advanced, In scorn of their proud arms and warlike tools, 140 Or grovelling soiled their crested helmets in the dust. 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 Which shall I first bewail Thy bondage or lost sight, Prison within prison Inseparably dark? 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, 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, To lowest pitch of abject fortune thou art fallen. Whom long descent of birth, 160 170 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. Sams. I hear the sound of words; their sense the air Dissolves unjointed ere it reach my ear. Chor. He speaks: let us draw nigh. might, The glory late of Israel, now the grief! Matchless in We come, thy friends and neighbours not unknown, 180 From Eshtaol and Zora's fruitful vale, To visit or bewail thee; or, if better, Counsel or consolation we may bring, Salve to thy sores: apt words have power to swage The tumours of a troubled mind, 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' 190 I would be understood). In prosperous days Yet that which was the worst now least afflicts me, 200 In me; of wisdom nothing more than mean. Chor. Tax not divine disposal. Wisest men 210 220 Sams. The first I saw at Timna, and she pleased That specious monster, my accomplished snare. Israel's oppressors. Of what now I suffer She was not the prime cause, but I myself, 230 Who, vanquished 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; Yet Israel still serves with all his sons. 240 Sams. That fault I take not on me, but transfer On Israel's governors and heads of tribes, |