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O first created Beam, and thou great Word,
Let there be light, and light was over all
Why am I thus bereav'd thy prime decree ?
The fun to me is dark

And filent as the moon,

When the deferts the night

Hid in her vacant interlunar cave.

Since light fo neceffary is to life,

And almoft life itself, if it be true

That light is in the foul,

She all in every part; why was the fight
To fuch a tender ball as th' eye confin'd,
So obvious and so easy to be quench'd?
And not, as feeling, through all parts diffus'd,
That she might look at will through every pore?
Then had I not been thus exil'd from light,
As in the land of darkness yet in light,
To live a life half dead, a living death,
And bury'd; but O yet more miferable !
Myfelf, my fepulchre, a moving grave,
Bury'd, yet not exempt

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By privilege of death and burial

From worst of other evils, pains and wrongs,

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But made hereby obnoxious more

To all the miseries of life,

Life in captivity

Among inhuman foes.

But who are these? for with joint pace I hear
The tread of many feet fteering this way;
Perhaps my enemies who come to stare

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At

At my affliction, and perhaps t' insult,
Their daily practice to afflict me more.

CHOR. This, this is he; foftly a while,
Let us not break in upon him ;

O change beyond report, thought, or belief!
See how he lies at random, carelesly diffus'd,
With languish'd head unpropt,

As one past hope, abandon'd,

And by himself given over ;

In flavish habit, ill fitted weeds

O'er-worn and foil'd;

Or do my eyes mifreprefent? Can this be he,

That heroic, that renown'd,

Irrefiftible Samfon? whom unarm'd

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

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

Ran on imbattel'd armies clad in iron,

And weaponless himself,

Made arms ridiculous, useless the forgery

Of brazen shield and spear, the hammer'd cuirass,
Chalybean temper'd steel, and frock of mail

Adamantean proof;

But fafeft he who stood aloof,

When infupportably his foot advanc'd,

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In fcorn of their proud arms and warlike tools, Spurn'd them to death by troops. The bold Afcalonite Fled from his lion ramp, old warriors turn'd

Their plated backs under his heel;

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Or grov'ling foil'd their crested helmets in the duft.
Then with what trivial weapon came to hand,

The

The jaw of a dead afs, his fword of bone,

A thousand fore-skins fell, the flower of Palestine,
In Ramath-lechi famous to this day.

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Then by main force pull'd up, and on his shoulders bore The gates of Azza, post, and maffy bar,

Up to the hill by Hebron, feat of giants old,

No journey of a fabbath-day, and loaded fo;

Like whom the Gentiles feign to bear up Heaven. 150 Which fhall I first bewail,

Thy bondage or loft fight,

Prifon within prifon

Infeparably dark?

Thou art become (O worst imprisonment!)

The dungeon of thyself; thy foul

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(Which men enjoying fight oft without cause complain)

Imprifon'd now indeed,

In real darkness of the body dwells,

Shut up from outward light

T' incorporate with gloomy night;

For inward light alas

Puts forth no vifual beam.

O mirror of our fickle state,
Since man on earth unparallel'd!

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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.

For him I reckon not in high estate

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Whom long defcent of birth

Or the sphere of fortune raises;

But

But thee whose strength, while virtue was her mate, Might have fubdued the earth,

Univerfally crown'd with highest praises.

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SAMS. I hear the found of words, their sense the air Diffolves unjointed ere it reach my ear.

CHO. He speaks, let us draw nigh.

The glory late of Ifrael, now the grief;

Matchlefs in [might,

We come thy friends and neighbours not unknown 180
From Efhtaol and Zora's fruitful vale,

To vifit or bewail thee, or if better,
Counsel or confolation we may bring,

Salve to thy fores; apt words have pow'r to fwage
The tumors of a troubled mind,

And are as balm to fefter'd wounds.

SAMS. Your coming, Friends, revives me,

Now of my own experience, not by talk,

How counterfeit a coin they are who friends

Bear in their fuperscription (of the most

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for I

[learn

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I would be understood); in profp'rous days
They fwarm, but in adverse withdraw their head,
Not to be found, though fought. Ye fee, O Friends,
How many evils have inclos'd me round;

Yet that which was the worst now least afflicts me, 195
Blindness, for had I fight, confus'd with shame,
How could I once look up, or heave the head,
Who like a foolish pilot have shipwrack'd
My veffel trusted to me from above,

Gloriously rigg'd; and for a word, a tear,
Fool, have divulg'd the fecret gift of God
To a deceitful woman? tell me, Friends,

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Am

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Am I not fung and proverb'd for a fool
In every street? do they not fay, how well
Are come upon him his deferts? yet why?
Immeasurable ftrength they might behold
In me, of wifdom nothing more than mean;
This with the other should, at least, have pair'd,
These two proportion'd ill drove me transverse.

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CHO. Tax not divine disposal; wisest men Have err'd, and by bad women been deceiv'd; And shall again, pretend they ne'er so wife. Deject not then fo overmuch thyself, Who hast of sorrow thy full load besides; Yet truth to fay, I oft have heard men wonder Why thou shouldft wed Philiftian 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 Timna, and the pleas'd Me, not my parents, that I fought to wed The daughter of an infidel: they knew not That what I motion'd was of God; I knew From intimate impulse, and therefore urg'd The marriage on; that by occafion hence I might begin Ifrael's deliverance, The work to which I was divinely call'd. She proving falfe, the next I took to wife (O that I never had! fond wish too late,) Was in the vale of Sorec, Dalila, That fpecious monster, my accomplish'd fnare. I thought it lawful from my former act, And the fame end; ftill watching to oppress

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Ifrael's

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