294
��SAMSON AGONISTES
��The air, imprisoned also, close and damp, Unwholesome draught. But here I feel
amends
The breath of heaven fresh blowing, pure
and sweet, 10
With day-spring born; here leave me to
respire.
This day a solemn feast the people hold To Dagon, their sea-idol, and forbid Laborious works. Unwillingly this rest Their superstition yields me; hence, with
leave
Retiring from the popular noise, I seek This unfrequented place to find some
ease
Ease to the body some, none to the mind From restless thoughts, that, like a deadly
swarm
Of hornets armed, no sooner found alone 20 But rush upon me thronging, and pre- sent Times past, what once I was, and what am
now. Oh, wherefore was my birth from Heaven
foretold
Twice by an Angel, who at last, in sight Of both my parents, all in flames ascended From off the altar where an offering
burned,
As in a fiery column charioting His godlike presence, and from some great
act
Or benefit revealed to Abraham's race ? Why was my breeding ordered and pre- scribed 30 As of a person separate to God, Designed for great exploits, if I must
die Betrayed, captived, and both my eyes put
out,
Made of my enemies the scorn and gaze, To grind in brazen fetters under task With this heaven-gifted strength ? O glo- rious strength,
Put to the labour of a beast, debased Lower than bond-slave ! Promise was
that I
Should Israel from Philistian yoke de- liver !
Ask for this great Deliverer now, and find him 40
Eyeless in Gaza, at the mill with slaves, Himself in bonds under Philistian yoke. Yet stay; let me not rashly call in doubt Divine prediction. What if all foretold
��Had been fulfilled but through mine own
default ?
Whom have I to complain of but myself, Who this high gift of strength committed
to me, In what part lodged, how easily bereft
me,
Under the seal of silence could not keep, But weakly to a woman must reveal it, 50 O'ercome with importunity and tears ? O impotence of mind in body strong ! But what is strength without a double
share
Of wisdom ? Vast, unwieldy, burdensome, Proudly secure, yet liable to fall By weakest subtleties; not made to rule, But to subserve where wisdom bears com- mand. God, when he gave me strength, to shew
withal How slight the gift was, hung it in my
hair.
But peace ! I must not quarrel with the will 60
Of highest dispensation, which herein Haply had ends above my reach to know. Suffices that to me strength is my bane, And proves the source of all my mise- ries
So many, and so huge, that each apart Would ask a life to wail. But, chief of
all,
O loss of sight, of thee I moat complain ! Blind among enemies ! O worse than
chains,
Dungeon, or beggary, or decrepit age ! Light, the prime work of God, to me is ex- tinct, 7 o And all her various objects of delight Annulled, which might in part my grief
have eased.
Inferior to the vilest now become Of man or worm, the vilest here excel
me:
They creep, yet see; I, dark in light, ex- posed 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, So
Irrecoverably dark, total eclipse
�� �
