They creep, yet see; I, dark in light, exposed To daily fraud, contempt, abuse, and wrong, Within doors, or without, still as a fool, In power of others, never in my own; Scarce half I seem 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, And silent as the moon, When she deserts the night, Hid in her vacant interlunar cave. And almost life itself, if it be true She all in every part, why was this sight By privilege 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. 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 heroic, that renown'd, Irresistible Samson? whom, unarm'd, [stand; No strength of man, or fiercest wild beast, could with 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, Adamantean proof! But safest he who stood aloof, When insupportably his foot advanced, In scorn of their proud arms and warlike tools, Spurn'd them to death by troops. The bold Ascalonite Fled from his lion ramp; old warriors 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, Then by main force pull'd up, and on his shoulders bore, 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, 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 mirror of our fickle state! The rarer thy example stands, By how much from the top of wondrous glory, Strongest of mortal men, To lowest pitch of abject fortune thou art fallen. For him I reckon not in high estate Whom long descent of birth, Or the sphere of fortune, raises; But thee, whose strength, while virtue was her mate, Might have subdued the earth, Universally crown'd with highest praises. Sams. I hear the sound of words; their sense the air Dissolves, unjointed, ere it reach my ear. [might, Cho. He speaks: let us draw nigh. Matchless in The glory late of Israel, now the grief; We come, thy friends and neighbours not unknown, To visit or bewail thee; or, if better, Salve to thy sores; apt words have power to 'suage And are as balm to fester'd wounds. Sams. Your coming, friends, revives me; for I learn I would be understood): in prosperous days Cho. Tax not divine disposal; wisest men At least of thy own nation, and as noble. Sams. The first I saw at Timna, and she pleased Me, not my parents, that I sought to wed The daughter of an infidel: they knew not That what I motion'd was of God; I knew From intimate impulse, and therefore urged The marriage on; that by occasion hence I might begin Israel's deliverance, The work to which I was divinely call'd. She, proving false, the next I took to wife (O, that I never had! fond wish too late) Was in the vale of Sorec, Dalila, That specious monster, my accomplish'd snare. I thought it lawful from my former act, And the same end; still watching to oppress Israel's oppressors: of what now I suffer She was not the prime cause, but I myself, Who, vanquish'd with a peal of words (O, weakness !) Gave up my fort of silence to a woman. Cho. In seeking just occasion to provoke The Philistine, thy country's enemy, Thou never wast amiss, I bear thee witness : Yet Israel still serves, with all his sons. Sams. That fault I take not on me, but transfer On Israel's governors and heads of tribes, |