| |
| Useless, and thence ridiculous, about him. | 1500 |
| And, since his strength with eye-sight was not lost, | |
| God will restore him eye-sight to his strength. | |
| Chor. Thy hopes are not ill founded, nor seem vain, | |
| Of his delivery, and thy joy thereon | |
| Conceived, agreeable to a father’s love; | 1505 |
| In both which we, as next, participate. | |
| Man. I know your friendly minds, and .. O, what noise! | |
| Mercy of Heaven! what hideous noise was that? | |
| Horribly loud, unlike the former shout. | |
| Chor. Noise call you it, or universal groan, | 1510 |
| As if the whole inhabitation perished? | |
| Blood, death, and deathful deeds, are in that noise, | |
| Ruin, destruction at the utmost point. | |
| Man. Of ruin indeed methought I heard the noise. | |
| Oh! it continues; they have slain my son. | 1515 |
| Chor. Thy son is rather slaying them: that outcry | |
| From slaughter of one foe could not ascend. | |
| Man. Some dismal accident it needs must be. | |
| What shall we do—stay here, or run and see? | |
| Chor. Best keep together here, lest, running thither, | 1520 |
| We unawares, run into danger’s mouth. | |
| This evil on the Philistines is fallen: | |
| From whom could else a general cry be heard? | |
| The sufferers, then, will scarce molest us here; | |
| From other hands we need not much to fear. | 1525 |
| What if, his eye-sight (for to Israel’s God | |
| Nothing is hard) by miracle restored, | |
| He now be dealing dole among his foes, | |
| And over heaps of slaughtered walk his way? | |
| Man. That were a joy presumptuous to be thought. | 1530 |
| Chor. Yet God hath wrought things as incredible | |
| For his people of old; what hinders now? | |
| Man. He can, I know, but doubt to think he will; | |
| Yet hope would fain subscribe, and tempts belief. | |
| A little stay will bring some notice hither. | 1535 |
| Chor. Of good or bad so great, of bad the sooner; | |
| For evil news rides post, while good news baits. | |
| And to our wish I see one hither speeding— | |
| An Ebrew, as I guess, and of our tribe. | |
| Messenger. O, whither shall I run, or which way fly | 1540 |
| The sight of this so horrid spectacle, | |
| Which erst my eyes beheld, and yet behold? | |
| For dire imagination still, pursues me. | |
| But providence or instinct of nature seems, | |
| Or reason, though disturbed and scarce consulted, | 1545 |
| To have guided me aright, I know not how, | |
| To thee first, reverend Manoa, and to these | |
| My countrymen, whom here I knew remaining, | |
| As at some distance from the place of horror, | |
| So in the sad event too much concerned. | 1550 |
| Man. The accident was loud, and here before thee | |
| With rueful cry; yet what it was we hear not. | |
| No preface needs; thou seest we long to know. | |
| Mess. It would burst forth; but I recover breath, | |
| And sense distract, to know well what I utter. | 1555 |
| Man. Tell us the sum; the circumstance defer. | |
| Mess. Gaza yet stands; but all her sons are fallen, | |
| All in a moment overwhelmed and fallen. | |
| Man. Sad! but thou know’st to Israelites not saddest | |
| The desolation of a hostile city. | 1560 |
| Mess. Feed on that first; there may in grief be surfeit. | |
| Man. Relate to whom. | |
| Mess. By Samson. | |
| Man. That still lessens | |
| The sorrow, and converts it nigh to joy. | 1565 |
| Mess. Ah! Manoa, I refrain too suddenly | |
| To utter what will come at last too soon, | |
| Lest evil tidings, with too rude irruption | |
| Hitting thy aged ear, should pierce too deep. | |
| Man. Suspense in news is torture; speak them out. | 1570 |
| Mess. Then take the worst in brief: Samson is dead. | |
| Man. The worst indeed! O, all my hope’s defeated | |
| To free him hence! but Death, who sets all free, | |
| Hath paid his ransom now and full discharge. | |
| What windy joy this day had I conceived, | 1575 |
| Hopeful of his delivery, which now proves | |
| Abortive as the first-born bloom of spring | |
| Nipt with the lagging rear of winter’s frost! | |
| Yet, ere I give the reins to grief, say first | |
| How died he; death to life is crown or shame. | 1580 |
| All by him fell, thou say’st; by whom fell he? | |
| What glorious hand gave Samson his death’s wound? | |
| Mess. Unwounded of his enemies he fell. | |
| Man. Wearied with slaughter, then, or how? explain. | |
| Mess. By his own hands. | 1585 |
| Man. Self-violence! What cause | |
| Brought him so soon at variance with himself | |
| Among his foes? | |
| Mess. Inevitable cause— | |
| At once both to destroy and be destroyed. | 1590 |
| The edifice, where all were met to see him, | |
| Upon their heads and on his own he pulled. | |
| Man. O lastly over-strong against thyself! | |
| A dreadful way thou took’st to thy revenge. | |
| More than enough we know; but, while things yet | 1595 |
| Are in confusion, give us, if thou canst, | |
| Eye-witness of what first or last was done, | |
| Relation more particular and distinct. | |
| Mess. Occasions drew me early to this city; | |
| And, as the gates I entered with sun-rise, | 1600 |
| The morning trumpets festival proclaimed | |
| Through each high street. Little I had dispatched, | |
| When all abroad was rumoured that this day | |
| Samson should be brought forth, to shew the people | |
| Proof of his mighty strength in feats and games. | 1605 |
| I sorrowed at his captive state, but minded | |
| Not to be absent at that spectacle. | |
| The building was a spacious theatre, | |
| Half round on two main pillars vaulted high, | |
| With seats where all the Lords, and each degree | 1610 |
| Of sort, might sit in order to behold; | |
| The other side was open, where the throng | |
| On banks and scaffolds under sky might stand: | |
| I among these aloof obscurely stood. | |
| The feast and noon grew high, and sacrifice | 1615 |
| Had filled their hearts with mirth, high cheer, and wine, | |
| When to their sports they turned. Immediately | |
| Was Samson as a public servant brought, | |
| In their state livery clad: before him pipes | |
| And timbrels; on each side went armed guards; | 1620 |
| Both horse and foot before him and behind, | |
| Archers and slingers, cataphracts, and spears. | |
| At sight of him the people with a shout | |
| Rifted the air, clamouring their god with praise, | |
| Who had made their dreadful enemy, their thrall. | 1625 |
| He patient, but undaunted, where they led him, | |
| Came to the place; and what was set before him, | |
| Which without help of eye might be assayed, | |
| To heave, pull, draw, or break, he still performed | |
| All with incredible, stupendious force, | 1630 |
| None daring to appear antagonist. | |
| At length, for intermission sake, they led him | |
| Between the pillars; he his guide requested | |
| (For so from such as nearer stood we heard), | |
| As over-tired, to let him lean a while | 1635 |
| With both his arms on those two massy pillars, | |
| That to the arched roof gave main support. | |
| He unsuspicious led him; which when Samson | |
| Felt in his arms, with head a while enclined, | |
| And eyes fast fixed, he stood, as one who prayed, | 1640 |
| Or some great matter in his mind revolved: | |
| At last, with head erect, thus cried aloud:— | |
| “Hitherto, Lords, what your commands imposed | |
| I have performed, as reason was, obeying, | |
| Not without wonder or delight beheld; | 1645 |
| Now, of my own accord, such other trial | |
| I mean to shew you of my strength yet greater | |
| As with amaze shall strike all who behold.” | |
| This uttered, straining all his nerves, he bowed; | |
| As with the force of winds and waters pent | 1650 |
| When mountains tremble, those two massy pillars | |
| With horrible convulsion to and fro | |
| He tugged, he shook, till down they came, and drew | |
| The whole roof after them with burst of thunder | |
| Upon the heads of all who sat beneath, | 1655 |
| Lords, ladies, captains, counsellors, or priests, | |
| Their choice nobility and flower, not only | |
| Of this, but each Philistian city round, | |
| Met from all parts to solemnize this feast. | |
| Samson, with these immixed, inevitably | 1660 |
| Pulled down the same destruction on himself; | |
| The vulgar only scaped, who stood without. | |
| Chor. O dearly bought revenge, yet glorious! | |
| Living or dying thou has fulfilled | |
| The work for which thou wast foretold | 1665 |
| To Israel, and now liest victorious | |
| Among thy slain self-killed; | |
| Not willingly, but tangled in the fold | |
| Of dire Necessity, whose law in death conjoined | |
| Thee with thy slaughtered foes, in number more | 1670 |
| Than all thy life had slain before. | |
| Semichor. While their hearts were jocund and sublime, | |
| Drunk with idolatry, drunk with wine | |
| And fat regorged of bulls and goats, | |
| Chaunting their idol, and preferring | 1675 |
| Before our Living Dread, who dwells | |
| In Silo, his bright sanctuary, | |
| Among them he a spirit of phrenzy sent, | |
| Who hurt their minds, | |
| And urged them on with mad desire | 1680 |
| To call in haste for their destroyer. | |
| They, only set on sport and play, | |
| Unweetingly importuned | |
| Their own destruction to come speedy upon them. | |
| So fond are mortal men, | 1685 |
| Fallen into wrath divine, | |
| As their own ruin on themselves to invite, | |
| Insensate left, or to sense reprobate, | |
| And with blindness internal struck. | |
| Semichor. But he, though blind of sight, | 1690 |
| Despised, and thought extinguished quite, | |
| With inward eyes illuminated, | |
| His fiery virtue roused | |
| From under ashes into sudden flame, | |
| And as an evening Dragon came, | 1695 |
| Assailant on the perched roosts | |
| And nests in order ranged | |
| Of tame villatic fowl, but as an Eagle | |
| His cloudless thunder bolted on their heads. | |
| So Virtue, given for lost, | 1700 |
| Depressed and overthrown, as seemed, | |
| Like that self-begotten bird | |
| In the Arabian woods embost, | |
| That no second knows nor third, | |
| And lay erewhile a holocaust, | 1705 |
| From out her ashy womb now teemed, | |
| Revives, reflourishes, then vigorous most | |
| When most unactive deemed; | |
| And, though her body die, her fame survives, | |
| A secular bird, ages of lives. | 1710 |
| Man. Come, come; no time for lamentation now, | |
| Nor much more cause. Samson hath quit himself | |
| Like Samson, and heroicly hath finished | |
| A life heroic, on his enemies | |
| Fully revenged—hath left them years of mourning, | 1715 |
| And lamentation to the sons of Caphtor | |
| Through all Philistian bounds; to Israel | |
| Honour hath left and freedom, let but them | |
| Find courage to lay hold on this occasion; | |
| To himself and father’s house eternal fame; | 1720 |
| And, which is best and happiest yet, all this | |
| With God not parted from him, as was feared, | |
| But favouring and assisting to the end. | |
| Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail | |
| Or knock the breast; no weakness, no contempt, | 1725 |
| Dispraise, or blame; nothing but well and fair, | |
| And what may quiet us in a death so noble. | |
| Let us go find the body where it lies | |
| Soaked in his enemies’ blood, and from the stream | |
| With lavers pure, and cleansing herbs, wash off | 1730 |
| The clotted gore. I, with what speed the while | |
| (Gaza is not in plight to say us nay), | |
| Will send for all my kindred, all my friends, | |
| To fetch him hence, and solemnly attend, | |
| With silent obsequy and funeral train, | 1735 |
| Home to his father’s house. There will I build him | |
| A monument, and plant it round with shade | |
| Of laurel ever green and branching palm, | |
| With all his trophies hung, and acts enrolled | |
| In copious legend, or sweet lyric song. | 1740 |
| Thither shall all the valiant youth resort, | |
| And from his memory inflame their breasts | |
| To matchless valour and adventures high; | |
| The virgins also shall, on feastful days, | |
| Visit his tomb with flowers, only bewailing | 1745 |
| His lot unfortunate in nuptial choice, | |
| From whence captivity and loss of eyes. | |
| Chor. All is best, though we oft doubt | |
| What the unsearchable dispose | |
| Of Highest Wisdom brings about, | 1750 |
| And ever best found in the close. | |
| Oft He seems to hide his face, | |
| But unexpectedly returns, | |
| And to his faithful Champion hath in place | |
| Bore witness gloriously; whence Gaza mourns, | 1755 |
| And all that band them to resist | |
| His uncontrollable intent. | |
| His servants He, with new acquist | |
| Of true experience from this great event, | |
| With peace and consolation hath dismissed, | 1760 |
| And calm of mind, all passion spent. | |
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