With this Heaven-gifted strength? O glorious strength, Lower than bond-slave! Promise was that I By weakest subtleties, not made to rule, Light, the prime work of God, to me is extinct, Annull'd, which might in part my grief have eas'd, Of man or worm; the vilest here excel me; Scarce half I seem to live, dead more than half. Without all hope of day! 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 the sight By privilege of death and burial, From worst of other evils, pains and wrongs; 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 heroick, that renown'd Irresistible Samson? whom unarm'd No strength of man, or fiercest wild beast, could withstand; 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, Adamantéan proof? 14 'Chalybean :' as if made by the Chalybes, famous ancient workers in iron. But safest he who stood aloof, When insupportably his foot advanc'd, In scorn of their proud arms and warlike tools, Spurn'd them to death by troops. The bold Ascalonite1 Fled from his lion ramp;2 old warriours turn'd 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 Ramath-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. 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 complain) 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! Puts forth no visual beam. O mirrour of our fickle state, Since man on earth, unparallel'd! 1'Ascalon:' one of the five principal cities of the Philistines.—2 'Ramp:' from rampant.‚—3 ' Azza:' another name for Gaza.- 'Hebron :' city of the ancient Anakims. Like whom :' Atlas. The rarer thy example stands, By how much from the top of wonderous glory To lowest pitch of abject fortune thou art fallen. Or the sphere of fortune, raises; But thee whose strength, while virtue was her mate, Universally crown'd with highest praises. Sam. I hear the sound of words; their sense the air Dissolves unjointed ere it reach my ear. Cho. He speaks, let us draw nigh. Matchless in might, The glory late of Israel, now the grief; We come, thy friends and neighbours not unknown, Salve to thy sores; apt words have power to swage And are as balm to fester'd wounds. Sam. Your coming, Friends, revives me; for I learn, I would be understood;) in prosperous days Yet that which was the worst now least afflicts me, 1 Eshtaol and Zora:' two towns in Dan; the latter, Samson's birthplace |