| |
| To count them things worth notice, till at length | 250 |
| 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 | |
| To set upon them, what advantaged best. | 255 |
| 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 | |
| To the Uncircumcised a welcome prey, | 260 |
| 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. | |
| Had Judah that day joined, or one whole tribe, | 265 |
| 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, | |
| Than to love bondage more than liberty— | 270 |
| 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, | |
| How frequent to desert him and at last | 275 |
| To heap ingratitude on worthiest deeds! | |
| Chor. Thy words to my remembrance bring | |
| How Succoth and the fort of Penuel | |
| Their great deliverer contemned, | |
| The matchless Gideon, in pursuit | 280 |
| 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, | |
| Defended Israel from the Ammonite, | |
| Had not his prowess quelled their pride | 285 |
| In that sore battle when so many died | |
| Without reprieve, adjudged to death | |
| For want of well pronouncing Shibboleth. | |
| Sams. Of such examples add me to the roll. | |
| Me easily indeed mine may neglect, | 290 |
| But God’s proposed deliverance not so. | |
| Chor. Just are the ways of God, | |
| And justifiable to men, | |
| Unless there be who think not God at all. | |
| If any be, they walk obscure; | 295 |
| For of such doctrine never was there school, | |
| But the heart of the Fool, | |
| And no man therein doctor but himself. | |
| Yet more there be who doubt his ways not just, | |
| As to his own edicts found contradicting; | 300 |
| Then give the reins to wandering thought, | |
| Regardless of his glory’s diminution, | |
| Till, by their own perplexities involved, | |
| They ravel more, still less resolved, | |
| But never find self-satisfying solution. | 305 |
| As if they would confine the Interminable, | |
| And tie him to his own prescript, | |
| Who made our laws to bind us, not himself, | |
| And hath full right to exempt | |
| Whomso it pleases him by choice | 310 |
| From national obstriction, without taint | |
| Of sin, or legal debt; | |
| For with his own laws he can best dispense. | |
| He would not else, who never wanted means, | |
| Nor in respect of the enemy just cause, | 315 |
| To set his people free, | |
| Have prompted this heroic Nazarite, | |
| Against his vow of strictest purity, | |
| To seek in marriage that fallacious bride, | |
| Unclean, unchaste. | 320 |
| Down, Reason, then; at least, vain reasonings down; | |
| Though Reason here aver | |
| That moral verdict quits her of unclean: | |
| Unchaste was subsequent; her stain, not his. | |
| But see! here comes thy reverend sire, | 325 |
| With careful step, locks white as down, | |
| Old Manoa: advise | |
| Forthwith how thou ought’st to receive him. | |
| Sams. Ay me! another inward grief, awaked | |
| With mention of that name, renews the assault. | 330 |
| Man. 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, | |
| My son, now captive, hither hath informed | |
| Your younger feet, while mine, cast back with age, | 335 |
| Came lagging after, say if he be here. | |
| Chor. As signal now in low dejected state | |
| As erst in highest, behold him where he lies. | |
| Man. O miserable change! Is this the man, | |
| That invincible Samson, far renowned, | 340 |
| The dread of Israel’s foes, who with a strength | |
| Equivalent to Angels’ walked their streets, | |
| None offering fight; who, single combatant, | |
| Duelled their armies ranked in proud array, | |
| Himself an Army—now unequal match | 345 |
| To save himself against a coward armed | |
| At one spear’s length? O ever-failing trust | |
| In mortal strength! and, oh, what not in man | |
| Deceivable and vain? Nay, what thing good | |
| Prayed for, but often proves our woe, our bane? | 350 |
| 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? | |
| Oh, wherefore did God grant me my request, | 355 |
| And as a blessing with such pomp adorned? | |
| Why are his gifts desirable, to tempt | |
| Our earnest prayers, then, given with solemn hand | |
| As graces, draw a scorpion’s tail behind? | |
| For this did the Angel twice descend? for this | 360 |
| 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, | |
| Thy foes’ derision, captive, poor and blind, | 365 |
| Into a dungeon thrust, to work with slaves! | |
| Alas! methinks whom God hath chosen once | |
| To worthiest deeds, if he through frailty err, | |
| He should not so o’erwhelm, and as a thrall | |
| Subject him to so foul indignities, | 370 |
| Be it but for honour’s sake of former deeds. | |
| Sams. Appoint not heavenly disposition, father | |
| Nothing of all these evils hath befallen me | |
| But justly; I myself have brought them on; | |
| Sole author I, sole cause. If aught seem vile, | 375 |
| 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, | |
| A Canaanite, my faithless enemy. | |
| This well I knew, nor was at all surprised, | 380 |
| 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 | |
| To them who had corrupted her, my spies | 385 |
| And rivals? In this other was there found | |
| More faith, who, also in her prime of love, | |
| Spousal embraces, vitiated with gold, | |
| Though offered only, by the scent conceived | |
| Her spurious first-born, Treason against me? | 390 |
| Thrice she assayed, with flattering prayers and sighs, | |
| And amorous reproaches, to win from me | |
| My capital secret, in what part my strength | |
| Lay stored, in what part summed, that she might know; | |
| Thrice I deluded her, and turned to sport | 395 |
| Her importunity, each time perceiving | |
| How openly and with what impudence | |
| She purposed to betray me, and (which was worse | |
| Than undissembled hate) with what contempt | |
| She sought to make me traitor to myself. | 400 |
| Yet, the fourth time, when, mustering all her wiles, | |
| With blandished parleys, feminine assaults, | |
| Tongue-batteries, she surceased not day nor night | |
| To storm me, over-watched and wearied out, | |
| At times when men seek most repose and rest, | 405 |
| I yielded, and unlocked her all my heart, | |
| Who, with a grain of manhood well resolved, | |
| Might easily have shook off all her snares; | |
| But foul effeminacy held me yoked | |
| Her bond-slave. O indignity, O blot | 410 |
| To Honour and Religion! servile mind | |
| Rewarded well with servile punishment! | |
| The base degree to which I now am fallen, | |
| These rags, this grinding, is not yet so base | |
| As was my former servitude, ignoble, | 415 |
| Unmanly, ignominious, infamous, | |
| True slavery; and that blindness worse than this, | |
| That saw not how degenerately I served. | |
| Man. I cannot praise thy marriage-choices, son— | |
| Rather approved them not; but thou didst plead | 420 |
| Divine impulsion prompting how thou might’st | |
| Find some occasion to infest our foes. | |
| I state not that; this I am sure—our foes | |
| Found soon occasion thereby to make thee | |
| Their captive, and their triumph; thou the sooner | 425 |
| Temptation found’st, or over-potent charms, | |
| To violate the sacred trust of silence | |
| Deposited within thee—which to have kept | |
| Tacit was in thy power. True; and thou bear’st | |
| Enough, and more, the burden of that fault, | 430 |
| 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 | |
| Great pomp, and sacrifice, and praises loud, | 435 |
| 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, | |
| Besides whom is no god, compared with idols, | 440 |
| 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, | |
| Of all reproach the most with shame that ever | 445 |
| Could have befallen thee and thy father’s house. | |
| Sams. Father, I do acknowledge and confess | |
| That I this honour, I this pomp, have brought | |
| To Dagon, and advanced his praises high | |
| Among the Heathen round—to God have brought | 450 |
| Dishonour, obloquy, and oped the mouths | |
| Of idolists and atheists; have brought scandal | |
| To Israel, diffidence of God, and doubt | |
| In feeble hearts, propense enough before | |
| To waver, or fall off and join with idols: | 455 |
| Which is my chief affliction, shame and sorrow, | |
| The anguish of my soul, that suffers not | |
| Mine eye to harbour sleep, or thoughts to rest. | |
| This only hope relieves me, that the strife | |
| With me hath end. All the contest is now | 460 |
| ’Twixt God and Dagon. Dagon hath presumed, | |
| Me overthrown, to enter lists with God, | |
| His deity comparing and preferring | |
| Before the God of Abraham. He, be sure, | |
| Will not connive, or linger, thus provoked, | 465 |
| 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, | |
| And with confusion blank his Worshipers. | 470 |
| Man. With cause this hope relieves thee; and these words | |
| I as a prophecy receive; for God | |
| (Nothing more certain) will not long defer | |
| To vindicate the glory of his name | |
| Against all competition, nor will long | 475 |
| Endure it doubtful whether God be Lord | |
| Or Dagon. But for thee what shall be done? | |
| Thou must not in the meanwhile, here forgot, | |
| Lie in this miserable loathsome plight | |
| Neglected. I already have made way | 480 |
| To some Philistian lords, with whom to treat | |
| About thy ransom. Well they may by this | |
| Have satisfied their utmost of revenge, | |
| By pains and slaveries, worse than death, inflicted | |
| On thee, who now no more canst do them harm. | 485 |
| Sams. Spare that proposal, father; spare the trouble | |
| Of that solicitation. Let me here, | |
| As I deserve, pay on my punishment, | |
| And expiate, if possible, my crime, | |
| Shameful garrulity. To have revealed | 490 |
| Secrets of men, the secrets of a friend, | |
| How heinous had the fact been, how deserving | |
| Contempt and scorn of all—to be excluded | |
| All friendship, and avoided as a blab, | |
| The mark of fool set on his front! | 495 |
| But I God’s counsel have not kept, his holy secret | |
| Presumptuously have published, impiously, | |
| Weakly at least and shamefully—a sin | |
| That Gentiles in their parables condemn | |
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