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SAMSON AGONISTES:

A DRAMATIC POEM.

THE ARGUMENT.

Samson made captive, blind, and now in the prison of Gaza, nere to labour as in a cominion workhouse, on a festival day, in the general cessation from labour, comes forth into the open air, to a place nigh, somewhat retired, there to sit awhile and bemoan his condition. Where he happens at length to be visited by certain friends and equals of his tribe, which make the Chorus, who seek to confort him what they can; then by his old father, Manoah, who endeavours the like, and withal tells him his purpose to procure his liberty by ransom; lastly, that this feast was proclaimed by the Philistines as a day of thanksgiving for their deliverance from the hands of Samson, which yet more troubles him. Manoah then departs to prosecute his endeavour with the Philistine lords for Sainson's redemption; who in the meanwhile is visited by other persons: and lastly by a public officer to require his coming to the feast before the lords and people, to play or shew his strength in their presence; he at first refuses, dismissing the public officer with absolute denial to come; at length, persuaded inwardly that this was from God, he yields to go along with him, who came now the second time with great threatenings to fetch him: the Chorus yet remaining on the place, Manoah returns full of joyful hope, to procure ere long his son's deliverance, in the midst of which discourse an Hebrew comes in haste, confusedly at first, and afterwards more distinctly relating the catastrophe, what Sanison had done to the Philistines, and by accident to himself; wherewith the tragedy ends.

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SAMSON. Attendant leading him.

A LITTLE onward lend thy guiding hand

To these dark steps, a little further on;
For yonder bank hath choice of sun or shade:
There I am wont to sit, when any chance
Pelieves me from my task of servile toil,

Samson Agonistes; Agonistes is a Greek word signifying Actor. The introduction is in imitation of the Edipus Coloueus of Sophocles. For the subject of the poem, and most of the scriptural allusions it contains, reference may be made in general to the Book of Judges.

Daily in the common prison else enjoin'd me,
Where I, a prisoner chain'd, scarce freely draw
The air imprison'd also, close and damp,

Unwholesome draught! but here I feel amends,
The breath of Heav'n fresh blowing, pure and sweet,
With day-spring born; here leave me to respire. 11
This day a solemn feast the people hold

To Dagon their sea-idol, and forbid

Laborious works; unwillingly this rest

Their superstition yields me; hence with leave

15

Retiring from the popular noise, I seek

This unfrequented place to find some ease,
Ease to the body some, none to the mind

From restless thoughts, that like a deadly swarm
Of hornets arm'd, no sooner found alone,
But rush upon me thronging, and present
Times past, what once I was, and what am now.
O wherefore was my birth from Heav'n foretold
Twice by an angel, who at last in sight
Of both my parents all in flames ascended
From off the altar, where an offering burn'd,
As in a fiery column charioting

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His god-like presence, and from some great act
Or benefit reveal'd to Abraham's race?
Why was my breeding order'd and prescribed
As of a person separate to God,

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Design'd for great exploits: if I must die

Betray'd, captived, and both my eyes put out,

Made of my enemies the scorn and gaze;

To grind in brazen fetters under task

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With this Heav'n-gifted strength? O glorious strength

Lower than bond-slave! Promise was that I

Put to the labour of a beast, debased

Should Israel from Philistian yoke deliver;

Ask for this great deliverer now, and find him 40
Eyeless in Gaza at the mill with slaves,
Himself in bonds under Philistian yoke:
Yet stay, let me not rashly call in doubt
Divine prediction; what if all foretold

Had been fulfill'd but through mine own default, 45
Whom have I to complain of but myself?

Who this high gift of strength committed to me,
In what part lodged, how easily bereft me,

Under the seal of silence could not keep
But weakly to a woman must reveal it,
O'ercome with importunity and tears.
O impotence of mind, in body strong!

But what is strength without a double share
Of wisdom, vast, unwieldy, burdensome,
Proudly secure, yet liable to fall

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By weakest subtleties, not made to rule,

But to subserve where wisdom bears command?

God, when he gave me strength, to shew withal
How slight the gift was, hung it in my hair.
But peace, I must not quarrel with the will
Of highest dispensation, which herein
Haply had ends above my reach to know:
Suffices that to me strength is my bane,
And proves the source of all my miseries;
So many, and so huge, that each apart
Would ask a life to wail, but chief of all,
O loss of sight, of thee I most complain!
Blind among enemies, O worse than chains,
Dungeon, or beggary, or decrepit age!

GO

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70

Light, the prime work of God, to me is extinct,
And all her various objects of delight
Annull'd, which might in part my grief have eased
Inferior to the vilest now become

Of man or worm; the vilest here excel me,
They creep, yet see, I dark in light exposed
To daily fraud, contempt, abuse, and wrong;
Within doors, or without, still as a fool,
In power of others, never in my own;
Scarce half I seem to live, dead more than half.
O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon,
Irrecoverably dark, total eclipse

Without all hope of day!

O first-created beam, and thou great Word,

Let there be light, and light was over all;
Why am I thus bereaved thy prime decree?
The sun to me is dark

And silent as the moon,

When she deserts the night

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80

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85

87. Shakspeare, second part of Henry VI. Act 1. Sc. 8.-The silent of the night, which is a classical expression, means, according to Warburton, an interlunar night.

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