But what is strength without a double share
Of wisdom, vast, unwieldy, burdenfome,
Proudly fecure, yet liable to fall

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By weakest subtleties, not made to rule,

But to fubferve where wisdom bears command!

God, when he gave me ftrength, to show withal
How flight the gift was, hung it in my hair,
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 fource of all my miferies;
So many,
and so huge, that each apart
Would ask a life to wail, but chief of all,
O lofs of fight, of thee I moft complain !
Blind among enemies, O worfe than chains,
Dungeon, or beggary, or decrepit age!
Light the prime work of God to me' is extinct,
And all her various objects of delight

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Annull'd, which might in part my grief have eas'd,
Inferior to the vileft now become

Of man or worm; the vileft here excel me,
They creep, yet see, I dark in light expos'd
To daily fraud, contempt, abuse, and wrong,
Within doors, or without, ftill as a fool,
In pow'r of others, never in my own ;
Scarce half I feem to live, dead more than half.
O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon,
Irrecoverably dark, total eclipse

Without all hope of day!

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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.

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Since light fo neceffary is to life,

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And almoft life itself, if it be true

That light is in the soul,

She all in every part; why was the fight

To fuch a tender ball as th' eye confin'd,

So obvious and fo eafy to be quench'd?

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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 miserable!
Myfelf, my fepulchre, a moving grave,
Bury'd, yet not exempt

By privilege of death and burial

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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 thefe? for with joint pace I hear
The tread of many feet steering 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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320

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No ftrength of man, or fierceft wild beaft could withstand;

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

Ran on imbattel'd armies clad in iron,

And weaponlefs himself,

Made arms ridiculous, useless the forgery

Of brazen fhield and fpear, the hammer'd cuirafs,
Chalybean temper'd fteel, and frock of mail

Adamantean proof;

But fafeft he who stood aloof,

When infupportably his foot advanc'd,

In fcorn of their proud arms and warlike tools,

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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;

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

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The

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

A thousand fore-fkins 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 massy bar,

Up to the hill by Hebron, feat of giants old,
No journey of a sabbath-day, and loaded so;
Like whom the Gentiles feign to bear up
Which fhall I first bewail,

Thy bondage or loft fight,

Heaven. 150

Prifon within prifon

Infeparably dark?

Thou art become (O worst imprisonment!)

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The dungeon of thyfelf; thy foul

(Which men enjoying fight oft without caufe 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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165

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 descent of birth

Or the fphere of fortune raises ;

But

But thee whofe ftrength, 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 fense 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,

Counfel or confolation we may bring,

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

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And are as balm to fefter'd wounds.

SAMS. Your coming, Friends, revives me, for I

Now of my own experience, not by talk,

[learn

How counterfeit a coin they are who friends
Bear in their fuperfcription (of the most

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I would be underftood); in profp'rous days
They fwärm, 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 trufted to me from above,
Gloriously rigg'd; and for a word, a tear,
Fool, have divulg'd the secret gift of God
To a deceitful woman? tell me, Friends,

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Am