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Samfon Agonistes.

Samfon.

LITTLE onward lend thy guiding hand

To these dark steps, a little further on; For yonder bank hath choice of Sun or fhade,

There I am wont to fit, when any chance
Relieves me from my task of servile toyl,
Daily in the common Prison else enjoyn'd me,
Where I a Prisoner chain'd, scarce freely draw
The air imprison'd alfo, close and damp,
Unwholfom draught: but here I feel amends,
The breath of Heav'n fresh-blowing, pure and fweet,
With day-spring born; here leave me to refpire.
This day a folemn Feast the people hold
To Dagon thir Sea-Idol, and forbid
Laborious works, unwillingly this rest
Thir Superstition yields me; hence with leave
Retiring from the popular noife, I seek
This unfrequented place to find fome ease,
Eafe to the body fome, none to the mind
From restless thoughts, that like a deadly swarm

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Of Hornets arm'd, no fooner 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 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 Godlike presence, and from some great act
Or benefit reveal'd to Abraham's race?

Why was my breeding order'd and prescrib'd 30
As of a person separate to God,

Defign'd for great exploits; if I must dye
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
Put to the labour of a Beast, debas't

[ftrength Lower then bondslave! Promise 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 slaves,
Himself in bonds under Philiftian yoke;
Yet ftay, let me not rafhly call in doubt
Divine Prediction; what if all foretold
Had been fulfilld but through mine own default,
Whom have I to complain of but my felf?
Who this high gift of strength committed to me,
In what part lodg'd, how easily bereft me,
Under the Seal of filence could not keep,
But weakly to a woman must reveal it,
O'recome with importunity and tears.

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O impotence of mind, in body strong!
But what is strength without a double share
Of wisdom, vast, unwieldy, burdensom,
Proudly fecure, yet liable to fall

By weakest futtleties, not made to rule,

But to fubferve where wisdom bears command.
God, when he gave me strength, to shew withal
How flight the gift was, hung it in my Hair.
But peace, I must not quarrel with the will
Of highest difpenfation, which herein
Happ❜ly had ends above my reach to know:
Suffices that to me ftrength is my bane,
And proves the fourse 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 then 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,
Inferiour 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 power of others, never in my own;
Scarce half I feem to live, dead more then half.
O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon,
Irrecoverably dark, total Eclipse

Without all hope cf day!

O first created Beam, and thou great Word,

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Let there be light, and light was over all;

Why am I thus bereav'd thy prime decree?
The Sun 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,
And almost life it felf, if it be true

That light is in the Soul,

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She all in every part; why was the fight

To fuch a tender ball as th' eye confin'd?
So obvious and fo eafie to be quench't,
And not as feeling through all parts diffus'd,
That she 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 buried; but O yet more miserable!
My felf, my Sepulcher, a moving Grave,
Buried, yet not exempt

By priviledge 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.

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But who are these? for with joint pace I hear 110
The tread of many feet stearing this way;
Perhaps my enemies who come to stare
At my affliction, and perhaps to infult,
Thir 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 anguish't head unpropt,

As one past hope, abandon'd,
And by himself given over;

In flavish habit, ill-fitted weeds
O're worn and foild;

Or do my eyes mifreprefent? Can this be hee,
That Heroic, that Renown'd,

Irrefiftible Samfon? whom unarm'd

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[withstand

No ftrength of man, or fierceft wild beaft could

Who tore the Lion, as the Lion tears the Kid,
Ran on embattelld Armies clad in Iron,

And weaponless himself,

Made Arms ridiculous, useless the forgery

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Of brazen shield and spear, the hammer'd Cuirass, Chalybean temper'd steel, and frock of mail Adamantean Proof;

But fafeft he who ftood aloof,

When infupportably his foot advanc't,

In fcorn of thir proud arms and warlike tools, Spurn'd them to death by Troops. The bold As

calonite

Fled from his Lion ramp, old Warriors turn'd
Thir plated backs under his heel;

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Or grovling foild thir crested helmets in the dust.
Then with what trivial weapon came to hand,
The Jaw of a dead Afs, his sword of bone,
A thousand fore-fkins fell, the flower of Paleftin
In Ramath-lechi famous to this day:
Then by main force pull'd up, and on his shoulders

[bore

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