They creep, yet see; I dark in light, exposed O first-created beam, and thou great Word, Why am I thus bereaved thy prime decree ? And silent as the moon, When she deserts the night, Hid in her vacant interlunar cave. She all in every part, why was this sight To live a life half dead, a living death, 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 80 90 100 Among inhuman foes. I near But who are these? for with joint pace Enter CHORUS. Cho. This, this is he; softly awhile, Let us not break in upon him: 10 O change beyond report, thought, or belief! As one past hope abandon'd, And by himself given over; In slavish habit, ill-fitted weeds, Or do my eyes misrepresent? Can this be he, That heroic, that renown'd, Irresistible Samson ? whom, unarm'd, 120 [stand; No strength of man, or fiercest wild beast, could with 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 hammer'd cuirass, But safest he who stood aloof, When insupportably his foot advanced, 130 In scorn of their proud arms and warlike tools, 140 Or, grovelling, soil'd their crested helmets in the dust. A thousand foreskins fell, the flower of Palestine, Then by main force pull'd up, and on his shoulders Up to the hill by Hebron, seat of giants old, No journey of a sabbath-day, and loaded so; [bore, 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 com Imprison'd now indeed, In real darkness of the body dwells, Shut up from outward light To incorporate with gloomy night; [plain), 160 For inward light, alas! Puts forth no visual beam. O mirror of our fickle state! The rarer thy example stands, By how much from the top of wondrous glory, To lowest pitch of abject fortune thou art fallen. For him I reckon not in high estate Whom long descent of birth, Or the sphere of fortune, raises; 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. Matchless in [might, Cho. He speaks: let us draw nigh. The glory late of Israel, now the grief; We come, thy friends and neighbours not unknown, 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 'suage The tumours of a troubled mind, 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 Cho. Tax not divine disposal; wisest men Who hast of sorrow thy full load besides: Sams. The first I saw at Timna, and she pleased 210 220 230 Who, vanquish'd with a peal of words (O, weakness!) Gave up my fort of silence to a woman. Cho. In seeking just occasion to provoke The Philistine, thy country's enemy, Thou never wast amiss, I bear thee witness: 240 Sams. That fault I take not on me, but transfer On Israel's governors and heads of tribes, |