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;
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
The tread of many feet steering this way;
Perhaps my enemies, who come to stare
At my affliction, and perhaps to insult-
Their daily practice to afflict me more.

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

O change beyond report, thought, or belief!
See how he lies at random, carelessly diffused,
With languished head unpropt,

As one past hope, abandoned,
And by himself given over,

In slavish habit, ill-fitted weeds
O'er-worn and soiled.

Or do my eyes misrepresent?

That heroic, that renowned,

Can this be he,

Irresistible Samson? whom, unarmed,

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,

And, weaponless himself,

Made arms ridiculous, useless the forgery

Of brazen shield and spear, the hammered cuirass, Chalybean-tempered steel, and frock of mail Adamantean proof:

But safest he who stood aloof,

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When insupportably his foot advanced,

In scorn of their proud arms and warlike tools,
Spurned them to death by troops. The bold Ascalonite
Fled from his lion ramp; old warriors turned
Their plated backs under his heel,

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Or grovelling soiled 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,

In Ramath-lechi, famous to this day:

Then by main force pulled 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

Thy bondage or lost sight,

Prison within prison

Inseparably dark?

Thou art become (O worst imprisonment !)

The dungeon of thyself; thy soul,

(Which men enjoying sight oft without cause complain)

Imprisoned 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,

Since man on earth, unparalleled !

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,

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Or the sphere of fortune, raises;

But thee, whose strength, while virtue was her mate, Might have subdued the Earth,

Universally crowned with highest praises.

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 power to swage The tumours of a troubled mind,

And are as balm to festered wounds.

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

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I would be understood). In prosperous days
They swarm, but in adverse withdraw their head,
Not to be found, though sought. Ye see, O friends,
How many evils have enclosed me round;
Yet that which was the worst now least afflicts me,
Blindness; for, had I sight, confused with shame,
How could I once look up, or heave the head,
Who, like a foolish pilot, have shipwracked
My vessel trusted to me from above,
Gloriously rigged, and for a word, a tear,
Fool! have divulged the secret gift of God
To a deceitful woman? Tell me, friends,
Am I not sung and proverbed 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

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In me; of wisdom nothing more than mean.
This with the other should at least have paired;
These two, proportioned ill, drove me transverse.

Chor. Tax not divine disposal. Wisest men
Have erred, and by bad women been deceived;
And shall again, pretend they ne'er so wise.
Deject not, then, so overmuch thyself,
Who hast of sorrow thy full load besides.
Yet, truth to say, I oft have heard men wonder
Why thou should'st wed Philistian women rather
Than of thine own tribe fairer, or as fair,

At least of thy own nation, and as noble.

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220

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 motioned 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 called.
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 accomplished 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,

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Who, vanquished with a peal of words (O weakness !), 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 remiss, I bear thee witness;

Yet Israel 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,

Acknowledged not, or not at all considered,
Deliverance offered. I, on the other side,

Used 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 250
Their lords, the Philistines, with gathered powers,
Entered Judea, seeking me, who then
Safe to the rock of Etham was retired-
Not flying, but forecasting in what place
To set upon them, what advantaged best.
Meanwhile the men of Judah, to prevent
The harass of their land, beset me round;

I willingly on some conditions came

Into their hands, and they as gladly yield me
To the Uncircumcised a welcome prey,

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Bound with two cords. But cords to me were threads
Touched with the flame: on their whole host I flew
Unarmed, and with a trivial weapon felled
Their choicest youth; they only lived who fled.
Had Judah that day joined, or one whole tribe,
They had by this possessed the towers of Gath,
And lorded over them whom now they 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,
Whom God hath of his special favour raised
As their deliverer ? If he aught begin,
How frequent to desert him, and at last
To heap ingratitude on worthiest deeds!

Chor. Thy words to my remembrance bring

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