Would ask a life to wail; but chief of all,
O loss of sight, of thee I most complain!
Blind among enemies, O worse 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

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Annull'd, which might in part my grief have eas'd,
Inferior to the vilest now become

Of man or worm; the vilest here excel me;

They creep, yet see; I, dark in light, expos'd

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To daily fraud, contempt, abuse, and wrong,
Within doors, or without, still as a fool,

In pow'r of others, never in my own;

Scarce half I seem to live, dead more then half.

O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon,
Irrecoverably dark, total eclipse

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Without all hope of day!

O first created beam, and thou great Word,

'Let there be light, and light was over all';

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And almost life itself, if it be true

Why am I thus bereav'd thy prime decree?
The sun to me is dark

And silent as the moon,

When she deserts the night,

Hid in her vacant interlunar cave.
Since light so necessary is to life,

That light is in the soul,

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She all in every part; why was the sight

To such a tender ball as th' eye confin'd,

So obvious and so easy to be quench'd

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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,

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And buried; but, O yet more miserable!
Myself my sepulchre, a moving grave;

Buried, yet not exempt,

By privilege of death and burial,

From worst of other evils, pains and wrongs;

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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

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The tread of many feet steering this way;

Perhaps my enemies, who come to stare

At my affliction, and perhaps t' insult,
Their daily practice to afflict me more.

Enter Chorus.

Chor. This, this is he; softly a while, Let us not break in upon him:

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O change beyond report, thought, or belief!

See how he lies at random, carelessly diffus'd,

With languish'd head unpropt,

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

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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,

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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;

Made arms ridiculous, useless the forgery

And, weaponless himself,

Of brazen shield and spear, the hammer'd cuirass,

Chalybean-temper'd steel, and frock of mail

Adamantéan proof?

But safest he who stood aloof,

When insupportably his foot advanc'd,

In scorn of their proud arms and warlike tools,

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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;

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Or, grov'ling, 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 fore-skins 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 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. 150 Which shall I first bewail,

Thou art become (0 worst imprisonment!)

The dungeon of thyself; thy soul

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(Which men enjoying sight oft without cause complain),

In real darkness of the body dwells,

By how much from the top of wondrous glory,

Strongest of mortal men,

To lowest pitch of abject fortune thou art fall'n.

For him I reckon not in high estate

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Whom long descent of birth,

Or the sphere of fortune, raises;

But thee whose strength, while virtue was her mate,

1

Might have subdued the earth,

Universally crown'd with highest praises.

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Sams. I hear the sound of words; their sense the air Dissolves unjointed ere it reach my ear.

Chor. 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, 180 From Eshtaol and Zora's fruitful vale,

To visit or bewail thee; or, if better,

Counsel or consolation we may bring,

Salve to thy sores; apt words have pow'r to swage
The tumours of a troubled mind,

And are as balm to fester'd wounds.

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Sams. Your coming, friends, revives me; for I learn Now of my own experience, not by talk,

How counterfeit a coin they are who friends
Bear in their superscription (of the most

I would be understood); in prosp'rous days
They swarm, but in advérse withdraw their head,
Not to be found, though sought. Yet see,
How many evils have enclos'd me round;

O friends,

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Yet that which was the worst now least afflicts mc, 195
Blindness; for had I sight, confus'd with shame,

How could I once look up, or heave the head,
Who, like a foolish pilot, have shipwreck'd
My vessel trusted to me from above,
Gloriously rigg'd; and for a word, a tear,
Fool! have divulg'd the secret gift of God
To a deceitful woman? Tell me, friends,
Am I not sung and proverb'd for a fool
In every street? do they not say, how well
Are come upon him his deserts? Yet why?
Immeasurable strength they might behold
In me, of wisdom nothing more than mean;
This with the other should at least have pair'd,
These two, proportion'd ill, drove me transverse.
Chor. Tax not divine disposal; wisest men
Have err'd, and by bad women been deceiv'd;
And shall again, pretend they ne'er so wise.
Deject not then so overmuch thyself,

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205

210

Who hast of sorrow thy full load besides:

Yet, truth to say, I oft have heard men wonder

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Why thou shouldst wed Philistian women rather
Than of thine own tribe fairer, or as fair,

At least of thy own nation, and as noble.

Sams. The first I saw at Timna, and she pleas'd

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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 impúlse, and therefore urg'd
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
(0 that I never had! fond wish too late)

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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,

230

Who, vanquish'd with peal of words (0 weakness!) 235 Gave up my fort of silence to a woman.

Chor. In seeking just occasion to provoke

The Philistine, thy country's enemy,

Thou never wast amiss, I bear thee witness:

Yet Israël still serves with all his sons.

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Sams. That fault I take not on me, but transfer

On Israel's governors and heads of tribes,

Who, seeing those great acts which God had done
Singly by me against their conquerors,
Acknowledg'd not, or not at all consider'd,
Deliverance offer'd: I on th' other side

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Us'd no ambition to commend my deeds;

The deeds themselves, though mute, spoke loud the doer:

But they persisted deaf, and would not seem

To count them things worth notice, till at length

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Their lords the Philistines with gather'd pow'rs
Enter'd Judea seeking me, who then
Safe to the rock of Etham was retir'd;
Not flying, but forecasting in what place
To set upon them, what advantag'd best.
Meanwhile the men of Judah; to prevent
The harass of their land, beset me round;
I willingly on some conditions came

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Into their hands, and they as gladly yield me
To the uncircumcis'd a welcome prey,

260

Bound with two cords; but cords to me were threads

Touch'd with the flame: on their whole host I flew
Unarm'd, and with a trivial weapon fell'd
Their choicest youth; they only liv'd who fled.
Had Judah that day join'd, or one whole tribe,
They had by this possess'd the tow'rs of Gath,
And lorded over them whom they now serve;
But what more oft, in nations grown corrupt,
And by their vices brought to servitude,
Than to love bondage more than liberty,
Bondage with ease than strenuous liberty;
And to despise, or envy, or suspect,

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270

Whom God hath of his special favour rais'd

As their deliverer? if he aught begin,

How frequent to desert him, and at last

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To heap ingratitude on worthiest deeds?

Chor. Thy words to my remembrance bring

How Succoth and the fort of Penuel

Not worse than by his shield and spear,
Defended Israel from the Ammonite,
Had not his prowess quell'd their pride
In that sore battle, when so many died
Without reprieve, adjudg'd to death,
For want of well pronouncing Shibboleth.

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Sams. Of such examples add me to the roll;

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Me easily indeed mine may neglect,

But God's propos'd deliverance not so.

Chor. Just are the ways of God,

And justifiable to men;

Unless there be, who think not God at all:
If any be, they walk obscure;

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For of such doctrine never was there school,

But the heart of the fool,

And no man therein doctor but himself.

Yet more there be, who doubt his ways not just, 300 As to his own edicts found contradicting,

Then give the reins to wand'ring thought,
Regardless of his glory's diminution;
Till by their own perplexities involv'd,
They ravel more, still less resolv'd,
But never find self-satisfying solution.

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As if they would confine th' Interminable,

And tie him to his own prescript,

Who made our laws to bind us, not himself,

And had full right t' exempt

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Whom so it pleases him by choice

From national obstriction, without taint

Of sin, or legal debt;

For with his own laws he cad best dispense.

He would not else, who never wanted means,

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Nor in respect of th' enemy just cause,

Down, reason, then; at least, vain reasonings, down;

Though reason here aver,

That moral verdict quits her of unclean:

Unchaste was subsequent, her stain not his,
But see, here comes thy reverend sire

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With careful step, locks white as down,
Old Manoah: advise

Forthwith how thou ought'st to receive him.
Sams, Ay me! another inward grief, awak'd
With mention of that name, renews th' assault,

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Enter Manoah,

Man, Brethren and men of Dan, for such ye seem, Though in this uncouth place; if old respect,

As I suppose, towards your once gloried friend,
My son now captive, hither hath inform'd

Your younger feet, while mine cast back with age

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