Daily in the common prison else enjoined me,

Where I, a prisoner chained, scarce freely draw

The air, imprisoned also, close and damp,

Unwholesome draught. But here I feel amends—

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

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

But rush upon me thronging, and present

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

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?

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,

With this heaven-gifted strength? O glorious strength,

Put to the labour of a beast, debased

Lower than bond-slave! Promise was that I

Should Israel from Philistian yoke deliver!

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

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,

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.

Of highest dispensation, which herein

Haply had ends above my reach to know.

Would ask a life to wail. But chief of all,

O loss of sight, of thee I most complain!

Blind among enemies! Oh worse than chains,

Dungeon, or beggary, or decrepit age!

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:

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.

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,'

The sun to me is dark

And silent as the moon,

When she deserts the night,

Hid in her vacant interlunar cave.

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 the eye confined,

But made hereby obnoxious more

To all the miseries of life,

Life in captivity

Among inhuman foes.

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.

Let us not break in upon him.

Oh change beyond report, thought, or belief!

See how he lies at random, carelessly diffused,

With languished head unpropt,

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,

Irresistible Samson? whom unarmed,

No strength of man, or fiercest wild beast, could withstand;

Who tore the lion, as the lion tears the kid;

Made arms ridiculous, useless the forgery

Of brazen shield and spear, the hammered cuirass,

Chalybean-tempered steel, and frock of mail

Adamantean proof;

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

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,

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;

Which shall I first bewail,

Thy bondage or lost sight?

Prison within prison

Inseparably dark.

The dungeon of thyself; thy soul

(Which men enjoying sight oft without cause complain)

Imprisoned now indeed,

In real darkness of the body dwells,

To incorporate with gloomy night;

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.

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.   175

The glory late of Israel, now the grief!

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

And are as balm to festered wounds.

Now of my own experience, not by talk,

How counterfeit a coin they are who 'friends'

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;

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.

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.

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.

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,

The work to which I was divinely called.

She proving false, the next I took to wife

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,

Gave up my fort of silence to a woman.

The Philistine, thy country's enemy,

Thou never wast remiss, I bear thee witness:

On Israel's governors and heads of tribes,

Who, seeing those great acts which God had done

Singly by me against their conquerors,

Deliverance offered. 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

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

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

They had by this possessed the towers of Gath,

And lorded over them whom they now serve.

But what more oft in nations grown corrupt,

And by their vices brought to servitude,

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,

To heap ingratitude on worthiest deeds!

How Succoth and the fort of Penuel

Their great deliverer contemned,

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,

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.

Me easily indeed mine may neglect,

But God's proposed deliverance not so.

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.

As to his own edicts found contradicting;

Then give the reins to wandering thought,

Regardless of his glory's diminution,

Till, by their own perplexities involved,

But never find self-satisfying solution.

And tie him to his own prescript,

Who made our laws to bind us, not himself,

And hath full right to exempt   310

Whomso it pleases him by choice

From national obstriction, without taint

Of sin, or legal debt;

For with his own laws he can best dispense.

Nor in respect of the enemy just cause,

To set his people free,

Have prompted this heroic Nazarite,

Against his vow of strictest purity,

To seek in marriage that fallacious bride,   320

Unclean, unchaste.

Though Reason here aver

That moral verdict quits her of unclean:

With mention of that name, renews the assault.

Though in this uncouth place), if old respect,

As I suppose, towards your once gloried friend,

Your younger feet, while mine, cast back with age,

Came lagging after, say if he be here.

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,

Himself an army, now unequal match

To save himself against a coward armed

At one spear's length. Oh ever-failing trust

In mortal strength! and oh, what not in man

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.

Who would be now a father in my stead?   355

Oh, 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, given with solemn hand

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

Ensnared, assaulted, overcome, led bound,   365

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,

Subject him to so foul indignities,

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

Nothing of all these evils hath befallen me

But justly; I myself have brought them on;   375

Sole author I, sole cause. If aught seem vile,

As vile hath been my folly, who have profaned

The mystery of God, given me under pledge

Of vow, and have betrayed it to a woman,

This well I knew, nor was at all surprised,

But warned by oft experience. Did not she

Of Timna first betray me, and reveal

The secret wrested from me in her highth

Of nuptial love professed, carrying it straight   385

To them who had corrupted her, my spies

And rivals? In this other was there found

More faith, who, also in her prime of love,

Spousal embraces, vitiated with gold,

Her spurious first-born, Treason against me?

Thrice she assayed, with flattering prayers and sighs

Enough, and more, the burden of that fault;

Bitterly hast thou paid, and still art paying,

That rigid score. A worse thing yet remains:

This day the Philistines a popular feast

Here celebrate in Gaza, and proclaim   435

Great pomp, and sacrifice, and praises loud,

To Dagon, as their god who hath delivered

Thee, Samson, bound and blind, into their hands,

Them out of thine, who slew'st them many a slain.

So Dagon shall be magnified, and God   440

Besides whom is no god, compared with idols,

Disglorified, blasphemed, and had in scorn

By the idolatrous rout amidst their wine;

Which to have come to pass by means of thee,

Samson, of all thy sufferings think the heaviest,   445

Of all reproach the most with shame that ever

Could have befallen thee and thy father's house.

That I this honour, I this pomp, have brought

Among the Heathen round; to God have brought

Dishonour, obloquy, and oped the mouths

Of idolists and atheists; have brought scandal

To Israel, diffidence of God, and doubt

To waver, or fall off and join with idols;

Which is my chief affliction, shame and sorrow,

The anguish of my soul, that suffers not

Will not connive, or linger, thus provoked,

But will arise and his great name assert.

Dagon must stoop, and shall ere long receive

Such a discomfit, as shall quite despoil him

Of all these boasted trophies won on me,   470

And with confusion blank his worshippers.

Of that solicitation. Let me here,

As I deserve, pay on my punishment,

And expiate, if possible, my crime,   490

Shameful garrulity. To have revealed

The mark of fool set on his front!

But I God's counsel have not kept, his holy secret

Presumptuously have published, impiously,

Weakly at least, and shamefully—a sin

To their Abyss and horrid pains confined.

But act not in thy own affliction, son.

Repent the sin; but, if the punishment

Or the execution leave to high disposal,

And let another hand, not thine, exact

Thy penal forfeit from thyself. Perhaps

God will relent, and quit thee all his debt;

Who ever more approves and more accepts   510

(Best pleased with humble and filial submission)

Him who, imploring mercy, sues for life,

Than who, self-rigorous, chooses death as due;

Which argues over-just, and self-displeased

Reject not, then, what offered means. Who knows

But God hath set before us to return thee

Home to thy country and his sacred house,

Where thou mayst bring thy offerings, to avert

His further ire, with prayers and vows renewed?   520

To what end should I seek it? when in strength

All mortals I excelled, and great in hopes,

With youthful courage, and magnanimous thoughts

Full of divine instinct, after some proof

Of acts indeed heroic, far beyond

The sons of Anak, famous now and blazed,

Fearless of danger, like a petty god

On hostile ground, none daring my affront—

Then, swollen with pride, into the snare I fell

Of fair fallacious looks, venereal trains,

Softened with pleasure and voluptuous life,

Of all my strength in the lascivious lap

Of a deceitful concubine, who shore me

Like a tame wether, all my precious fleece,

Then turned me out ridiculous, despoiled,

Shaven, and disarmed among mine enemies.   540

Which many a famous warrior overturns,

Thou could'st repress; nor did the dancing ruby

Sparkling, out-poured, the flavour, or the smell,

Allure thee from the cool crystalline stream.

Against the eastern ray, translucent, pure

With touch ethereal of Heaven's fiery rod,

Thirst, and refreshed; nor envied them the grape

Whose heads that turbulent liquor fills with fumes.

And at another to let in the foe,

Effeminately vanquished? by which means,

Now blind, disheartened, shamed, dishonoured, quelled,

To what can I be useful? wherein serve

But to sit idle on the household hearth,

A burdenous drone; to visitants a gaze,

Or pitied object; these redundant locks,

Robustious to no purpose, clustering down,

Vain monument of strength; till length of years   570

And sedentary numbness craze my limbs

To a contemptible old age obscure.

Here rather let me drudge, and earn my bread,

Till vermin, or the draff of servile food,

Consume me, and oft-invocated death   575

Hasten the welcome end of all my pains.

Which was expressly given thee to annoy them?

Better at home lie bed-rid, not only idle,

But God, who caused a fountain at thy prayer

From the dry ground to spring, thy thirst to allay

After the brunt of battle, can as easy

Cause light again within thy eyes to spring,

Wherewith to serve him better than thou hast.   585

And I persuade me so. Why else this strength

Miraculous yet remaining in those locks?

His might continues in thee not for nought,

Nor shall his wondrous gifts be frustrate thus.

In all her functions weary of herself;

My race of glory run, and race of shame,

And I shall shortly be with them that rest.

That mingle with thy fancy. I, however,

Must not omit a father's timely care

To prosecute the means of thy deliverance

By ransom or how else. Mean while be calm,

And healing words from these thy friends admit.   605