SAMSON AGONISTES.

A

SAMSON.

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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 servile toil, Daily' in the common prison else injoin'd me, Where I a prifoner chain'd, scarce freely draw The air imprifon'd alfo, close and damp, Unwholesome draught: but here I feel amends, The breath of Heav'n fresh blowing, pure and sweet, With day-fpring born; here leave me to refpire. 11 This day a folemn feast the people hold To Dagon their fea-idol, and forbid Laborious works; unwillingly this rest

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Their fuperftition yields me; hence with leave 15
Retiring from the popular noife, I fetk
This unfrequented place to find fome ease,
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 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
Of both my parents all in flames afcended
From off the altar, where an offering burn'd,
As in a fiery column charioting

His god-like prefence, and from some great act

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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

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With this Heav'n-gifted ftrength? O glorious strength
Put to the labor of a beast, debas'd

Lower than bondflave! Promife was that I
Should Ifrael from Philiftian yoke deliver;

Afk for this great deliverer now, and find him 40
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

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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 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 fhare
Of wisdom, vast, unwieldy, burdensome,
Proudly fecure, yet liable to fall

By weakeft fubtleties, not made to rule,

But to fubferve where wisdom bears command!
God, when he gave me ftrength, to fhow withal
How flight the gift was, hung it in my hair.
But 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 strength is my bane,

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And

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 most complain!
Blind among enemies, O worse than chains,
Dungeon, or beggery, or decrepit age!

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Light the prime work of God to me' is extinct, 70 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 vilest 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 deserts the night

Hid in her vacant interlunar cave.

Since light fo neceffary is to life,

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And almoft life itself, if it be true

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,

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As

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 burial

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From worlt of other evils, pains and wrongs, 105 But made hereby obnoxious more

To all the miseries of life,

Life in captivity

Among inhuman foes.

I hear 110

But who are these? for with joint pace
The tread of many feet steering this way;
Perhaps my enemies who come to ftare
At my affliction, and perhaps t' insult,
Their daily practice to afflict 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 languish'd head unpropt,

As one paft 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 he,
That heroic, that renown'd,

Irrefiftible Samfon? whom unarm'd

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No ftrength of man, or fierceft wild beast could withWho tore the lion, as the lion tears the kid, [ftand; Ran on imbattel'd armies clad in iron,

And weaponless himself,

Made arms ridiculous, ufelefs the forgery

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Of brazen fhield and spear, the hammer'd cuirafs, Chaly bean temper'd fteel, and frock of mail

Adamantean

Adamantean proof;

But fafeft he who stood aloof,

When infupportably his foot advanc'd,

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In fcorn of their proud arms and warlike tools, Spurn'd them to death by troops. The bold AfcaloFled from his lion ramp, old warriors turn'd

Their plated backs under his heel;

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Or grov ling foil'd their crefted helmets in the duft.
Then with what trivial weapon came to hand,
The jaw of a dead afs, his fword of bone,

A thousand fore-fkins fell, the flow'r of Palestine,
In Ramath-lechi famous to this day.

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Then by main force pull'd up, and on his fhoulder's 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;

[bore

Like whom the Gentiles feign to bear up Heaven. Which fhall I first bewail,

Infeparably dark?

Thou art become (O worst imprisonment!)

The dungeon of thyfelf; thy foul

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(Which men enjoying fight oft without cause com

In real darkness of the body dwells,

Imprifon'd now indeed,

Shat up from outward light

Tincorporate with gloomy night;

For inward light alas

Puts forth no visual beam.

O mirror of our fickle ftaté,

Since man on earth unparallel'd!

The rarer thy example stands,

[plain)

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By how much from the top of wondrous glory,

Strongest of mortal men,

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