Little onward lend thy guiding hand To these dark steps, a little farther on; For yonder bank hath choice of fun or fhade, There I am wont to fit, when any chance Relieves me from my task of fervile toil,. Daily in the common prifon else enjoin'd me, Where I a pris'ner chain'd, fcarce freely draw The air imprifon'd alfo, close and damp, Unwholfome draught; but here I feel amends, The breath of heav'n fresh blowing, pure and fweet, With day-spring born; here leave me to respire, This day a folemn feast the people hold To Dagon their fea-idol, and forbid Laborious works, unwillingly this rest Their fuperftition yields me; hence with leave Retiring from the pop'lar noise, I seek This unfrequented place to find some case, Eafe to the body fome, none to the mind From restless thoughts, that like a deadly fwarm Of hornets arm'd, no fooner found alone, But rush upon me thronging, and prefent 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 fight Of both my parents all in flames afcended From off the altar, where an off'ring burn'd, As in a fiery column charioting
His God-like prefence, and from fome great att
Or benefit reveal'd to Abraham's race?
Why was my breeding order'd and prescrib'd,
As of a perfon feparate to God,
Defign'd for great exploits; if I must die
Betray'd, captiv'd, and both my eyes put out,
Made of my enemies the fcorn and gaze;
To grind in brazen fetters under task,
With his heav'n-gifted strength? O glorious ftrength
Put to the labour of a beaft, debas'd
Lower than bondflave! promise was that I
Should Ifrael from Philiftian yoke deliver;
Ask for this great deliv'rer now, and find him
Eyelefs in Gaza at the mill with flaves,
Himfelf in bonds under Philiftian yoke.
Yet ftay, let me not rafhly call in doubt
Divine prediction: what if all foretold
Had been fulfill'd but through mine own default,
Whom have I to complain of but my felf?
Who this high gift of ftrength committed to me,
In what part lodg'd, how eafily bereft me,
Under the feal of filence 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 ftrength without a double flare
Of wildom, vaft, unwieldy, burthenfome,
Proudly fecure, yet liable to fall
By weakest subtleties, not made to rule,
But to fubferve where wisdom bears command.
God, when he gave me ftrength, to fhew withal
How flight the gift was, hung it in my hair..
But peace, 1 must not quarrel with the willerinle &
Of highest dispensation, which hereind
Haply had ends above my reach to know:
Suffices that to me ftrength is my bane,
And proves the fource of all my miseries;
So many, and fo huge, that each apart
Would ask a life to wail, but chief of all,du
O loss of fight, of thee I most complain! ma
Blind among enemies, O worse than chains,
Dungeon, or beggary, 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 eas'd,
Inferior to the vileft now become
Of man or worm; the vileft here excel me,
They creep, yet fee, I dark in light expos'd
To daily fraud, contempt, abuse and wrong,
Within doors, or without, ftill as a fool,
In pow'r of others, never in my own;
Scarce half I feem to live, dead more than half.
O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon,
Irrecov❜rably 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 bereav'd thy prime decree ?
The fun to me is dark
And filent as the moon
When she deserts the night
Hid in her vacant interlunar cave.
Since light fo neceffary is to life,
And almost life it felf, if it be true
That light is in the foul,
She all in ev'ry part; why was the fight
To fuch a tender ball as th' eye confin'd?
So obvious and fo eafy to be quench'd,
And not, as feeling, through all parts diffus'd,
That she might look at will through ev'ry pore?
Then had I not been thus exil'd from light;
As in the land of darkness yet in light,
To live a life half dead, a living death,
And bury'd; but O yet more miferable!
My felf, my fepulchre, a moving grave,
Bury'd, yet not exempt
By privilege of death and burial
From worft 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 fteering this way;
Perhaps my enemies who come to ftare
At my affliction, and perhaps t' infult,
Their daily practice to affli&t me more.
Chor. This, this is he; foftly a while,
Let us not break in upon him;
O change beyond report, thought or belief!.
See how he lies at random, carelefly diffus'd,.
With languifh'd head unpropt,
As one past hope, abandon'd,
And by himself given over?
In flavish habit, ill-fitted weeds
O'er worn and foil'd;
Or do my eyes mifreprefent? can this be be,
That heroick, that renown'd,
Irresistible Samfon; whom unarm'd
No ftrength of man,or fierceft wild beaft could withstand?
Who tore the lion, as the lion tears the kid,
Ran on imbattl'd armies clad in iron,
And weaponless himself,
Made arms ridiculous, useless the forgery
Of brazen shield and fpear, the hammer'd cuirass,
Chalybean temper'd fteel, and frock of mail
Adamantean proof;
But safest he who stood aloof,
When insupportably his foot advanc'd,
In fcorn of their proud arms and warlike tools,
Spurn'd them to death by troops. The bold Afcalonite
Fled from his lion ramp, old warriors turn'd
Their plated backs under his heel; WM
Or grov'ling foil'd their crested helmets in the duft.
Then with what trivial weapon came to hand,
The jaw of a dead ass, his fword of bone,
A thousand foreskins fell, the flow'r of Palestin,
In Ramath-lechi famous to this day:
Then by main force pull'd up and on his shoulders bare
The gates of Azza, poft, and maffy bar
Up to the hill by Hebron, feat of giants old,
No journey of a fabbath-day, and loaded fo;
Like whom the Gentiles feign to bear up heav'n.
Which fhall I first bewail,
Thy bondage or loft fight,
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