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��SAMSON AGONISTES

��Since man on earth, unparalleled,

The rarer thy example stands,

By how much from the top of wondrous

��Strongest of mortal men,

To lowest pitch of abject fortune thpu art

fallen.

For him I reckon not in high estate 170 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 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 190 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, 200 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

In me ; of wisdom nothing more than mean.

This with the other should at least have paired;

These two, proportioned ill, drove me trans- verse.

Chor. Tax not divine disposal. Wisest men 210

Have erred, and by bad women been de- ceived;

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 Tirana, and she pleased

Me, not my parents, that I sought to wed 220

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. 230

I thought it lawful from my former act,

And the same end, still watching to op- press

Israel's oppressors. Of what now I suf- fer

She was not the prime cause, but I my- self,

Who, vanquished with a peal of words, (O weakness !)

Gave up my fort of silence to a woman. Chor. In seeking just occasion to pro- voke

The Philistine, thy country's enemy,

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