Would ask a life to wail, but chief of all, Light the prime work of God to me is extinct, 70 Annull'd, which might in part my grief have eas'd Of man or worm; the vilest here excel me, Scarce half I seem to live, dead more than half. Without all hope of day! O first created beam, and thou great word, Why am I thus bereav'd thy prime decree? And silent as the moon, When she deserts the night Hid in her vacant interlunar cave. Since light so necessary is to life, And almost life itself, if it be true That light is in the soul, She all in ev'ry part; why was the sight 90 And not as feeling through all parts diffus'd, To live a life half dead, a living death, : Myself my sepulchre, a moving grave, By privilege of death and burial From worst of other evils, pains and wrongs, To all the miseries of life, Life in captivity Among inhuman foes. 100 But who are these? for with joint pace I hear 110 O change beyond report, thought or belief! As one past hope, abandon'd, In slavish habit, ill-fitted weeds Or do my eyes misrepresent? Can this be he, 120 Irresistible Samson? whom unarm'd No strength of man, or fiercest wild beast could withstand; Who tore the lion, as the lion tears the kid, And weaponless himself, Made arms rediculous, useless the forgery 130 Of brazen shield and spear, the hammer'd cuirass, Chalybean temper'd steel, and frock of mail Adamantean proof; But safest he who stood aloof, When insupportably his foot advanc'd, In scorn of their proud arms and warlike tools, Then by main force pull'd up, and on his shoulders Thy bondage or lost sight, Thou art become (O worst imprisonment!) The dungeon of thyself; thy soul [plain) (Which men enjoying sight oft without cause com Imprison'd now indeed, In real darkness of the body dwells, Shut up from outward light To incorporate with gloomy night; Puts forth no visual beam. O mirror of our fickle state, The rarer thy example stands, 160 By how much from the top of wond'rous glory, To lowest pitch of abject fortune thou art fall'n, For him I reckon not in high estate Whom long descent of birth Or the sphere of fortune raises; 170 But thee whose strength, while virtue was her mate, Might have subdued the earth, Universally crown'd with highest praises. SAM. I hear the sound of words, their sense the air Dissolves unjointed ere it reach my ear. CHOR.He speaks, let us draw nigh. Matchless in The glory late of Israel, now the grief; [might, We come thy friends and neighbours not unknown From Eshtaol and Zora's fruitful vale, To visit or bewail thee, or if better, 181 Salve to thy sores; apt words have power to swage The tumors of a troubled mind, And are as balm to fester'd wounds. [learn 190 SAM. Your coming, friends, revives me, for I Now of my own experience, not by talk, How counterfeit a coin they are who friends, Bear in their superscription, (of the most I would be understood) in prosp'rous days They swarm, but in adverse withdraw their head, Not to be found, though sought. Ye see, O friends, How many evils have inclos'd me round; 200 Yet that which was the worst now least afflicts me, |