They creep, yet see; I dark in light, exposed O first-created beam, and thou great Word, 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 Among inhuman foes. But who are these? for with joint pace I hear Enter CHORUS. Cho. This, this is he; softly awhile, O change beyond report, thought, or belief! As one past hope abandon'd, And by himself given over; In slavish habit, ill-fitted weeds, O'er-worn and soil'd; Or do my eyes misrepresent? Can this be he, That heroic, that renown'd, Irresistible Samson ? whom, unarm'd, 110 120 [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, Adamantean proof! But safest he who stood aloof, When insupportably his foot advanced, In scorn of their proud arms and warlike tools, 130 Spurn'd them to death by troops. The bold Ascalonite 140 Or, grovelling, soil'd their crested helmets in the dust. Then with what trivial weapon came to hand, The jaw of a dead ass, his sword of bone, A thousand foreskins fell, the flower of Palestine, In Ramath-lechi, famous to this day. Then by main force pull'd up, and on his shoulders 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; [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. Matchless in Sams. I hear the sound of words; their sense the air To visit or bewail thee; or, if better, [might, 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 Now of my own experience, not by talk, How counterfeit a coin they are who friends Bear in their superscription (of the most I would be understood): in prosperous days They swarm, but in adverse withdraw their head, Not to be found, though sought. Ye see, O friends, evils have enclosed me round; How many Yet that which was the worst now least afflicts me, 200 Cho. Tax not divine disposal; wisest men 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, Sams. That fault I take not on me, but transfer On Israel's governors and heads of tribes, 240 |