This uttered, straining all his nerves, he bowed; When mountains tremble, those two massy pillars He tugged, he shook, till down they came, and drew 1650 Upon the heads of all who sat beneath, Pulled down the same destruction on himself; Chor. O dearly bought revenge, yet glorious! 1660 Living or dying thou hast fulfilled The work for which thou wast foretold To Israel, and now liest victorious Among thy slain self-killed; Not willingly, but tangled in the fold Of dire Necessity, whose law in death conjoined Thee with thy slaughtered foes, in number more Semichor. While their hearts were jocund and sublime, Drunk with idolatry, drunk with wine Among them he a spirit of phrenzy sent, And urged them on with mad desire 1670 To call in haste for their destroyer. They, only set on sport and play, Unweetingly importuned 1680 Their own destruction to come speedy upon them. So fond are mortal men, Fallen into wrath divine, As their own ruin on themselves to invite, And with blindness internal struck. Semichor. But he, though blind of sight, Despised, and thought extinguished quite, With inward eyes illuminated, His fiery virtue roused From under ashes into sudden flame, And as an evening dragon came, Assailant on the perched roosts And nests in order ranged Of tame villatic fowl, but as an eagle His cloudless thunder bolted on their heads. So Virtue, given for lost, Depressed and overthrown, as seemed, Like that self-begotten bird, In the Arabian woods embost, That no second knows nor third, And lay erewhile a holocaust, From out her ashy womb now teemed, Revives, reflourishes, then vigorous most When most unactive deemed ; And, though her body die, her fame survives, A secular bird, ages of lives. 1690 1700 Man. Come, come; no time for lamentation now, Nor much more cause. Samson hath quit himself Like Samson, and heroicly hath finished A life heroic, on his enemies 1710 Fully revenged-hath left them years of mourning Through all Philistian bounds; to Israel VOL. III. L 1720 To himself and father's house eternal fame; With silent obsequy and funeral train, 1730 Home to his father's house. There will I build him Of laurel ever green and branching palm, Chor. All is best, though we oft doubt Of Highest Wisdom brings about, And ever best found in the close. Oft He seems to hide his face, 1740 But unexpectedly returns, And to his faithful champion hath in place Bore witness gloriously; whence Gaza mourns, 1750 |