On hostile ground, none daring my affront; 540 Cho. Desire of wine, and all delicious drinks, Which many a famous warrior overturns, Thou couldst repress; nor did the dancing ruby, Sparkling out-pour'd, the flavour or the smell, Or taste that cheers the heart of gods and men, Allure thee from the cool crystalline stream. Sams. Wherever fountain or fresh current flow'd Against the eastern ray, translucent, pure With touch ethereal of heaven's fiery rod, I drank, from the clear milky juice allaying Thirst, and refresh'd; nor envied them the grape Whose heads that turbulent liquor fills with fumes. Cho. O madness, to think use of strongest wines, And strongest drinks, our chief support of health, When God, with these forbidden, made choice to rear His mighty champion, strong above compare, Whose drink was only from the liquid brook! 550 Sams. But what avail'd this temperance, not com Against another object more enticing? What boots it at one gate to make defence, Effeminately vanquish'd? by which means, [plete 560 Now blind, dishearten'd, shamed, dishonour'd, puell'd To what can I be useful, wherein serve My nation, and the work from Heaven imposed, Here rather let me drudge, and earn my bread, 570 [gift Man. Wilt thou then serve the Philistines with that Cause light again within thine eyes to spring, 580 Sams. All otherwise to me my thoughts portend,590 That these dark orbs no more shall treat with light, Nor the other light of life continue long, But yield to double darkness nigh at hand: So much I feel my genial spirits droop, My hopes all flat, nature within me seems In all her functions weary of herself; My race of glory run, and race of shame. And I shall shortly be with them that rest. Man. Believe not these suggestions which proceed From anguish of the mind and humours black, 600 To prosecute the means of thy deliverance By ransom, or how else; meanwhile be calm, With maladies innumerable In heart, head, breast, and reins ; There exercise all his fierce accidents, And on her purest spirits prey, As on entrails, joints, and limbs, With answerable pains, but more intense, My griefs not only pain me, As a lingering disease, But, finding no redress, ferment and rage; Nor less than wounds immedicable Rankle, and fester, and gangrene, To black mortification. 610 Thoughts, my tormentors, arm'd with deadly stings, Mangle my apprehensive tenderest parts, Exasperate, exulcerate, and raise Dire inflammation, which no cooling herb Nor breath of vernal air from snowy Alp. 620 Sleep hath forsook and given me o'er To death's benumbing opium as my only cure: 630 And sense of Heaven's desertion. I was his nursling once, and choice delight, Promised by heavenly message twice descending. Abstemious I grew up, and thrived amain; Above the nerve of mortal arm, Against the uncircumcised, our enemies: Whom I, by his appointment, had provoked, The close of all my miseries, and the balm. Cho. Many are the sayings of the wise, In ancient and in modern books enroll'd, Extolling patience as the truest fortitude; And to the bearing well of all calamities, All chances incident to man's frail life, Consolatories writ 64c 650 With studied argument, and much persuasion sought, Lenient of grief and anxious thought: But with the afflicted, in his pangs, their sound Little prevails, or rather seems a tune Harsh, and of dissonant mood from his complaint: Unless he feel within Some source of consolation from above, Secret refreshings, that repair his strength, And fainting spirits uphold. 660 God of our fathers! what is man, That thou, towards him, with hand so various, Or might I say contrarious, Temper❜st thy providence through his short course,670 Not evenly, as thou rulest The angelic orders, and inferior creatures mute, Irrational and brute ? Nor do I name of men the common rout, That, wandering loose about, Grow up and perish, as the summer fly, And people's safety, which in part they effect: 680 Changest thy countenance, and thy hand, with no regard Of highest favours past From thee on them, or them to thee of service. Nor only dost degrade them, or remit To life obscured, which were a fair dismission, But throw'st them lower than thou didst exalt them Unseemly falls in human eye, Too grievous for the trespass or omission; Oft leavest them to the hostile sword Of heathen and profane, their carcasses To dogs and fowls a prey, or else captived; [high; 690 Or to the unjust tribunals, under change of times, With sickness and disease, thou bow'st them down, In crude old age; 700 |