*

[75]

Samfon Agonistes.

A

SAMSON.

Little onward lend thy guiding hand
To these dark steps, a little further on;
For yonder bank hath choice of fun or shade;

There I am wont to fit, when any chance
Relieves me from my task of fervile toil,
Daily' in the common prison else injoin'd me,
Where I a prifoner chain'd, scarce freely draw
The air imprifon'd alfo, clofe and damp,
Unwholefome 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 feaft the people hold

To Dagon their fea-idol, and forbid
Laborious works; unwillingly this reft
Their fuperftition yields me; hence with leave
Retiring from the popular noife, I seek
This unfrequented place to find fomé eafe,
Eafe to the body fome, none to the mind
From reftless thoughts, that like a deadly fwarm
Of hornets arm'd, no fooner found alone,
But rush upon me thronging, and present
Times paft, 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

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* Samfon Agonistes, that is, Samfon an actor, Samfon represented in a play.

Of both my parents all in flames afcended

From off the altar, where an offering burn'd,
As in a fiery columb charioting

His god-like prefence, and from fome great act
Or benefit reveal'd to Abraham's race?

Why was my breeding order'd and prescrib'd
As of a perfon separate 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 this Heav'n-gifted ftrength? O glorious ftrength

Put to the labor of a beast, debas'd

Lower than bond flave! Promise was that I
Should Ifrael from Philistian yoke deliver;
Afk for this great deliverer now, and find him
Eyelefs in Gaza at the mill with flaves,
Himself 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 myself?
Who this high gift of strength 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 muft reveal it,
O'ercome with importunity and tears.
O impotence of mind, in body strong!
But what is ftrength without a double fhare
Of wisdom, vaft, unwieldy, burdenfome,
Proudly fecure, yet liable to fall

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By weakeft fubtleties, not made to rule,

But to fubferve where wifdom bears command!

God, when he gave me ftrength, to fhow withal

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But

How flight the gift was, hung it in my hair.
peace, I must not quarrel with the will
Of higheft difpenfation, which herein
Haply had ends above my
reach to know:
Suffices that to me ftrength is my bane,
And proves
the fource of all my miferies;
So many, and fo huge, that each apart
Would ask a life to wail, but chief of all,
O lofs of fight, of thee I moft complain!
Blind among enemies, O worfe 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 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, abufe 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,
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 bereav'd thy prime decree ?
The fun to me is dark

And filent as the moon,
When the deferts the night

Hid in her vacant interlunar cave.
Since light fo neceffary is to life,
That light is in the foul,

She all in every 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 the might look at will through every 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!
Myfelf, my fepulchre, a moving grave,
Bury'd, yet not exempt

By privilege of death and buria!

From wort of other evils, pains and wrongs,
But made hereby obnoxious more

To all the miferies of life,

Life in captivity

Among inhuman foes.

But who are thefe? for which joint peace I hear
The tread of many feet fleering this way;
Perhaps my enemies who come to stare
At my affliction, and perhaps t' infult,''
Their daily practice to affli& me more.

1

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 languish'd head unpropt,

As one past hope, abandon'd,
And by himself giv'n over; a
In flavish habit, ill-fitted weeds

Oler-worn and foil'd;

Or do my eyes misreprefent? Can this be he,
That heroic, that renown'd, i

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