To such a tender ball as the eye confined, 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. 100 But who are these? for with joint pace I hear Chor. This, this is he; softly a while; O change beyond report, thought, or belief! 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? Can this be he, That heroic, that renowned, 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 130 Of brazen shield and spear, the hammered cuirass, Adamantean proof: But safest he who stood aloof, 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, Or grovelling soiled their crested helmets in the dust. 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: 140 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; 160 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, 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, Universally crowned with highest praises. Sams. I hear the sound of words; their sense the air Dissolves unjointed ere it reach my ear. 170 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, To visit or bewail thee; or, if better, Counsel or consolation we may bring, Salve to thy sores: apt words have power to swage 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 I would be understood). In prosperous days They swarm, but in adverse withdraw their head, Yet that which was the worst now least afflicts me, 180 190 Blindness; for, had I sight, confused with shame, Am I not sung and proverbed for a fool In every street? Do they not say, 'How well Chor. Tax not divine disposal. Wisest men Who hast of sorrow thy full load besides. Yet, truth to say, I oft have heard men wonder Sams. The first I saw at Timna, and she pleased 200 210 220 That specious monster, my accomplished snare. Chor. In seeking just occasion to provoke The Philistine, thy country's enemy, 230 Thou never wast remiss, I bear thee witness; 240 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. Acknowledged not, or not at all considered, 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, I willingly on some conditions came Into their hands, and they as gladly yield me 260 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 |