From the dry ground to spring, thy thirst t' allay
After the brunt of battel, can as easy
Cause light again within thy eyes to spring,

590

Wherewith to serve him better than thou haft; 585
And I perfuade me fo; why else this strength
Miraculous yet ramaining in those locks?
His might continues in thee not for nought,
Nor shall his wondrous gifts be fruftrate thus.
Sams. All otherwise to me my thoughts portend,
That these dark orbs no more shall treat with light,
Nor th' other light of life continue long,
But yield to double darkness nigh at hand:
So much I feel my genial spirits droop,
My hopes all flat, nature within me seems
In all her functions weary of herself,
My race of glory run, and race of fhame,
And I shall shortly be with them that rest.

Man. Believe not these suggestions which proceed
From anguish of the mind and humors black, 600
That mingle with thy fancy. I however
Must not omit a father's timely care
To profecute the means of thy deliverance
By ransome, or how elfe: mean while be calm,
And healing words from these thy friends admit. 605
Sams. O that torment should not be confin'd

To the body's wounds and fores,

With maladies innumerable

In heart, head, breast and reins;

595

But

But must secret passage find

To th' inmoft mind,

There exercise all his fierce accidents,

And on her purest spirits prey,
As on entrails, joints, and limbs,
With answerable pains, but more intense,
Though void of corporal sense.

My griefs not only pain me

As a lingring disease,

But finding no redress, ferment and rage,
Nor less than wounds immedicable

Rankle, and fefter, and gangrene,

To black mortification.

610

Dire inflammation, which no cooling herb
Or medicinal liquor can affwage,

Nor breath of vernal air from snowy Alp.

615

620

Thoughts my tormentors arm'd with deadly stings
Mangle my apprehensive tenderest parts,
Exasperate, exulcerate, and raise

625

Sleep hath forfook and giv'n me o'er

To death's benumming opium as my only cure: 630
Thence faintings, fwoonings of despair,

And sense of Heav'n's desertion.

I was his nurfling once and choice delight,

His deftin'd from the womb,

Promis'd by heav'nly meffage twice defcending. 635

Under his special eye

Abstemious I grew up and thriv'd amain;

He led me on to mightieft deeds
Above the nerve of mortal arm
Against th' uncircumcis'd, our enemies:
But now hath caft me off as never known,
And to thofe cruel enemies,

Whom I by his appointment had provok'd,
Left me all helpless with th' irreparable loss
Of fight, referv'd alive to be repeated
The subject of their cruelty or scorn.
Nor am I in the list of them that hope;
Hopeless are all my evils, all remediless;
This one prayer yet remains, might I be heard,
No long petition, speedy death,

The close of all my miferies, and the balm.

Chor. Many are the sayings of the wife In ancient and in modern books inroll'd, Extolling patience as the trueft fortitude; And to the bearing well of all calamities, All chances incident to man's frail life, Confolatories writ

640

645

Some fource of confolation from above,

Secret refreshings, that repair his strength,

650

655

With study'd argument, and much persuasion sought Lenient of grief and anxious thought:

But with th' afflicted in his pangs their found 660

Little prevails, or rather feems a tune

Harsh, and of dissonant mood from his complaint;

Unless he feel within

665

And

And fainting spirits uphold.

God of our fathers, what is man!

That thou towards him with hand so various,
Or might I fay contrarious,

Temper'ft thy providence through his fhort course,
Not ev'nly, as thou rul❜st

671

Th'angelic orders and inferior creatures mute,
Irrational and brute.

Nor do I name of men the common rout,
That wand'ring loose about
Grow
up and perish, as the summer flie,
Heads without name no more remember'd,
But such as thou haft folemnly elected,
With gifts and graces eminently adorn'd
To fome great work, thy glory,

And people's fafety, which in part they' effect:
Yet toward these thus dignify'd, thou oft

Amidst their highth of noon

(gard Changeft thy count'nance, and thy hand with no reOf highest favors past 685

From thee on them, or them to thee of service.

Nor only doft degrade them, or remit

To life obfcur'd, which were a fair difmiffion,

But throw'ft them lower than thou didst exalt them high,
Unseemly falls in human eye,

690

Too grievous for the trespass or omiffion;
Oft leav'ft them to the hoftile fword

Of Heathen and profane, their carcases

675

680

To dogs and fowls a prey, or else captiv'd;
Or to th' unjust tribunals, under change of times, 695
And condemnation of th' ingrateful multitude.
If these they scape, perhaps in poverty

With fickness and disease thou bow'ft them down,
Painful diseases and deform'd,

In crude old age;

Though not difordinate, yet causless suff'ring
The punishment of diffolute days: in fine,
Juft or unjust alike seem miserable,

For oft alike both come to evil end.

704

So deal not with this once thy glorious champion, The image of thy flrength, and mighty minister. What do I beg? how haft thou dealt already? Behold him in this ftate calamitous, and turn His labors, for thou canft, to peaceful end.

But who is this, what thing of fea or land? 710

Female of sex it seems,

That fo bedeck'd, ornate, and gay,

Of Javan or Gadire

With all her bravery on, and tackle trim,

Sails fill'd, and ftreamers waving,

700

Courted by all the winds that hold them play,
An amber fent of odorous perfume
Her harbinger, a damsel train behind;

715

720

Some