That she might look at will through every pore?
Then had I not been thus exiled from light,
As in the land of darkness yet in light,
To live a life half dead, a living death,
And buried; but, Oh 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.
Chorus. 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 languish'd head unpropt,

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

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 hammer'd cuirass,
Chalybean-temper'd steel, and frock of mail

Adamantean proof:

But safest he who stood aloof,

When insupportably his foot advanced,

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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,

In Ramath-lechi, famous to this day:

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.
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)

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,
Since man on earth unparallel'd!

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

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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,
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 fester'd 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

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 shipwrack'd
My vessel trusted to me from above,
Gloriously rigg'd, 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 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 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.

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.

Chor. In seeking just occasion to provoke

The Philistine, thy country's enemy,

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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 consider'd,
Deliverance offer'd: 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
Their lords, the Philistines, with gather'd powers,
Enter'd 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

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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,

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 lived who fled.
Had Judah that day join'd, or one whole tribe,
They had by this possess'd 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
How Succoth and the fort of Penuel
Their great deliverer contemn'd,
The matchless Gideon, in pursuit
Of Madian and her vanquish'd kings:
And how ingrateful Ephraim

Had dealt with Jephtha, who by argument,
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, adjudged to death
For want of well pronouncing Shibboleth.

Sams. Of such examples add me to the roll;

Me easily indeed mine may neglect,

But God's proposed 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;