The Complete Poems (Penguin Classics)

  20 Of hornets armed, no sooner found alone,

  But rush upon me thronging, and present

  Times past, what once I was, and what am now.

  O wherefore was my birth from Heaven foretold

  Twice by an angel, who at last in sight

  25 Of both my parents all in flames ascended

  From off the altar, where an off’ring burned,

  As in a fiery column charioting

  His godlike presence, and from some great act

  Or benefit revealed to Abraham’s race?

  30 Why was my breeding ordered and prescribed

  As of a person separate to God,

  Designed for great explóits; if I must die

  Betrayed, captíved, and both my eyes put out,

  Made of my enemies the scorn and gaze;

  35 To grind in brazen fetters under task

  With this Heav’n-gifted strength? O glorious strength

  Put to the labour of a beast, debased

  Lower than bondslave! Promise was that I

  Should Israel from Philistian yoke deliver;

  40 Ask for this great deliverer now, and find him

  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

  45 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,

  50 But weakly to a woman must reveal it,

  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,

  55 Proudly secure, yet liable to fall

  By weakest subtleties; not made to rule,

  But to subserve where wisdom bears command.

  God, when he gave me strength, to show withal

  How slight the gift was, hung it in my hair.

  60 But peace, I must not quarrel with the will

  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 miseries;

  65 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 most complain!

  Blind among enemies, O worse than chains,

  Dungeon, or beggary, or decrepit age!

  70 Light the prime work of God to me is extinct,

  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,

  75 They creep, yet see; I dark in light exposed

  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.

  80 O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon,

  Irrecoverably dark, total eclipse

  Without all hope of day!

  O first-created beam, and thou great word,

  Let there be light, and light was over all;

  85 Why am I thus bereaved thy prime decree?

  The sun to me is dark

  And silent as the moon,

  When she deserts the night

  Hid in her vacant interlunar cave.

  90 Since light so necessary is to life,

  And almost life itself, if it be true

  That light is in the soul,

  She all in every part, why was the sight

  To such a tender ball as th’ eye confined?

  95 So obvious and so easy to be quenched,

  And not, as feeling, through all parts diffused,

  That she might look at will through every pore?

  Then had I not been thus exíled from light;

  As in the land of darkness yet in light,

  100 To live a life half dead, a living death,

  And buried; but O yet more miserable!

  Myself my sepulchre, a moving grave,

  Buried, yet not exempt

  By privilege of death and burial

  105 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.

  110 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.

  115 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 languished head unpropped,

  120 As one past hope, abandoned,

  And by himself given over;

  In slavish habit, ill-fitted weeds

  O’erworn and soiled;

  Or do my eyes misrepresent? Can this be he,

  125 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,

  130 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;

  135 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

  140 Their plated backs under his heel;

  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

  145 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,

  150 Like whom the Gentiles feign to bear up heaven.

  Which shall I first bewail,

  Thy bondage or lost sight,

  Prison within prison

  Inseparably dark?

  155 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,

  160 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,

  165 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 fall’n.

  170 For him I reckon not in high estate

  Whom long descent of birth

  Or the sphere of fortune raises;

  But thee whose streng
th, while virtue was her mate,

  Might have subdued the earth,

  175 Universally crowned with highest praises.

  Samson. I hear the sound of words, their sense the air

  Dissolves unjointed ere it reach my ear.

  Chorus. He speaks, let us draw nigh. Matchless in might,

  The glory late of Israel, now the grief;

  180 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

  185 The tumours of a troubled mind,

  And are as balm to festered wounds.

  Samson. Your coming, friends, revives me, for I learn

  Now of my own experience, not by talk,

  How counterfeit a coin they are who friends

  190 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;

  195 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 shipwrecked

  My vessel trusted to me from above,

  200 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

  205 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 transverse.

  210 Chorus. 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;

  215 Yet truth to say, I oft have heard men wonder

  Why thou shouldst wed Philistian women rather

  Than of thine own tribe fairer, or as fair,

  At least of thy own nation, and as noble.

  Samson. The first I saw at Timna, and she pleased

  220 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 impúlse, and therefore urged

  The marriage on; that by occasion hence

  225 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, Dálila,

  230 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,

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

  Gave up my fort of silence to a woman.

  Chorus. In seeking just occasion to provoke

  The Philistine, thy country’s enemy,

  Thou never wast remiss. I bear thee witness:

  240 Yet Israel still serves with all his sons.

  Samson. 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,

  245 Acknowledged not, or not at all considered,

  Deliverance offered: I on th’ 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

  250 To count them things worth notice, till at length

  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

  255 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

  260 To the uncircumcised a welcome prey,

  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.

  265 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,

  270 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,

  275 How frequent to desert him, and at last

  To heap ingratitude on worthiest deeds?

  Chorus. Thy words to my remembrance bring

  How Succoth and the fort of Penuel

  Their great deliverer contemned,

  280 The matchless Gideon in pursuit

  Of Madian and her vanquished kings:

  And how ingrateful Ephraim

  Had dealt with Jephtha, who by argument,

  Not worse than by his shield and spear

  285 Defended Israel from the Ammonite,

  Had not his prowess quelled their pride

  In that sore battle when so many died

  Without reprieve adjudged to death,

  For want of well pronouncing shibboleth.

  290 Samson. Of such examples add me to the roll;

  Me easily indeed mine may neglect,

  But God’s proposed deliverance not so.

  Chorus. Just are the ways of God,

  And justifiable to men;

  295 Unless there be who think not God at all;

  If any be, they walk obscure;

  For of such doctrine never was there school,

  But the heart of the fool,

  And no man therein doctor but himself.

  300 Yet more there be who doubt his ways not just,

  As to his own edícts, found contradicting,

  Then give the reins to wand’ring thought,

  Regardless of his glory’s diminution;

  Till by their own perplexities involved

  305 They ravel more, still less resolved,

  But never find self-satisfying solution.

  As if they would confine th’ interminable,

  And tie him to his own prescript,

  Who made our laws to bind us, not himself,

  310 And hath full right to exempt

  Whom so it pleases him by choice

  From national obstriction, without taint

  Of sin, or legal debt;

  For with his own laws he can best dispense.

  315 He would not else who never wanted means,

  Nor in respect of th’ enemy just cause

  To set his people free,

  Have prompted this heroic Nazarite,

  Against his vow of strictest purity,

  320 To seek in marri
age that fallacious bride,

  Unclean, unchaste.

  Down Reason then, at least vain reasonings down,

  Though Reason here aver

  That moral verdict quits her of unclean:

  325 Unchaste was subsequent, her stain not his.

  But see here comes thy reverend sire

  With careful step, locks white as down,

  Old Mánoa: advise

  Forthwith how thou ought’st to receive him.

  330 Samson. Ay me, another inward grief awaked,

  With mention of that name renews th’ assault.

  Manoa. Brethren and men of Dan, for such ye seem,

  Though in this uncouth place; if old respect,

  As I suppose, towards your once gloried friend,

  335 My son now captive, hither hath informed

  Your younger feet, while mine cast back with age

  Came lagging after; say if he be here.

  Samson. As signal now in low dejected state,

  As erst in highest, behold him where he lies.

  340 Manoa. O miserable change! is this the man,

  That invincible Samson, far renowned,

  The dread of Israel’s foes, who with a strength

  Equivalent to angels’ walked their streets,

  None offering fight; who single combatant

  345 Duelled their armies ranked in proud array,

  Himself an army, now unequal match

  To save himself against a coward armed

  At one spear’s length. O ever-failing trust

  In mortal strength! and O what not in man

  350 Deceivable and vain! Nay what thing good

  Prayed for, but often proves our woe, our bane?

  I prayed for children, and thought barrenness

  In wedlock a reproach; I gained a son,

  And such a son as all men hailed me happy;

  355 Who would be now a father in my stead?

  O wherefore did God grant me my request,

  And as a blessing with such pomp adorned?

  Why are his gifts desirable, to tempt

  Our earnest prayers, then giv’n with solemn hand

  360 As graces, draw a scorpion’s tail behind?

  For this did the angel twice descend? for this

  Ordained thy nurture holy, as of a plant;

  Select, and sacred, glorious for a while,

  The miracle of men: then in an hour

  365 Ensnared, assaulted, overcome, led bound,

  Thy foes’ derision, captive, poor, and blind

  Into a dungeon thrust, to work with slaves?

  Alas methinks whom God hath chosen once

  To worthiest deeds, if he through frailty err,

  370 He should not so o’erwhelm, and as a thrall

  Subject him to so foul indignities,

  Be it but for honour’s sake of former deeds.

  Samson. Appoint not Heavenly disposition, father,

  Nothing of all these evils hath befall’n me