Their superstition yields me; hence with leave
Retiring from the popular noise, I seek
This unfrequented place to find some ease,
Ease to the body some, none to the mind 1
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 Heaven 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

His godlike 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,

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

With this Heaven-gifted strength? O glorious strength,
Put to the labour of a beast, debased
Lower than bondslave! Promise was that I
Should Israel from Philistian yoke deliver;
Ask for this great deliverer now, and find him
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

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Had been fulfill'd but through mine own default, I'
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

By weakest subtleties, not made to rule,
But to subserve where wisdom bears command!
God, when he gave me strength, to show 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!
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 ceased,
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,

Hid in her vacant interlunar cave.
Since light so necessary is to life,

And almost life itself, if it be true
That light is in the soul,

She all in every part; why was the sight
To such a tender ball as the eye confined,
So obvious and so easy to be quench'd?
And not, as feeling, through all parts diffused,
That she might look at will through every pore?
Then had I not been thus exiled from light,
As in the land of darkness, yet in light,
To live a life half dead, a living death,
And buried; but, O yet more miserable!
Myself my sepulchre, a moving grave;
Buried, yet not exempt,

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
the tread of many feet steering this way;
Perhaps my enemies, who come to stare
At my affliction, and perhaps to insult,
Their daily practice to afflict me more.

Enter CHORus.

Cho. This, this is he; softly awhile
Let us not break in upon him:

O change beyond report, thought, or belief!
See how he lies at random, carelessly diffused,
With languish'd head unpropp'd

As one past hope, abandon'd,

And by himself given over;

In slavish habit, ill fitted weeds

O'erworn and soil'd;

Or do my eyes misrepresent? Can this be he,

That heroic, that renown'd,

Irresistible Samson? whom unarm'd

[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,

Chaly'bean temper'd steel, and frock of mail tot elu“

"

When insupportably his foot advanced,` 2 (d'i
In scorn of their proud arins and warlike tools,"
Spurn'd them to death by troops. The bold Ascalonite
Fled from his lion ramp; old warriors turn'de mot
Their plated backs under his heel;
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 Rameth-lechi, famous to this day.

Then by main force pull'd up, and on his shoulders bore
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;

Like whom the Gentiles feign to bear up Heaven.
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,"

[plain)

(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;
For inward light, alas!

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