day a solemn feast the people hold Dagon, their sea-idol, and forbid Laborious works, unwillingly this rest

Their superstition yields me; hence with leave
Retiring from the popular noise I seek
This unfrequented place to find some ease;
Ease to the body some, none to the mind
From restless thoughts, that, like a deadly swarm
Of hornets arm'd, no sooner found alone,
But rush upon me thronging, and present
Times past, what once I was, and what am now.
Oh! wherefore was my birth from heav'n foretold
Twice by an angel, who at last in sight

Of both my parents all in flames ascended
From off the altar, where an off'ring burn'd,
As in a fiery column charioting

His god-like presence, and from some great act
Or benefit reveal'd to Abraham's race ?1
Why was my breeding order'd and prescribed
As of a person separate to God,

Design'd for great exploits, if I must die

Betray'd, captived, and both my eyes put out,
Made of my enemies the scorn and gaze,

To grind in brazen fetters under task

With this heav'n-gifted strength? O'glorious strength
Put to the labour of a beast, debased

Lower than bondslave! Promise was that I
Should Israel from Philistian yoke deliver;
Ask for this great deliverer now, and find him
Eyeless in Gaza at the mill with slaves,
Himself in bonds under Philistian yoke.
Yet stay, let me not rashly call in doubt
Divine prediction: what if all foretold

Had been fulfill'd but through mine own default,
Whom have I to complain of but myself?
Who this high gift of strength committed to me,
In what part lodged, how easily bereft me,
Under the seal of silence could not keep,

1 Judges xiii. 3, 11–20.

viere visdom sears ammami.

ene tragh a now withal

ving 1 in ny lair. mst 26 Marte with the vil

anch. viis lepin

A tere ny reach a know:
ne strength is ny jane,

eshe me fail ny miseries,
ami inge, hat each apart

a life to val; but thief of all,
I night, of thee I most complain!
mong enemies, worse than chains,

-ren ir beggary, or decrepit age!

the prime work of Goo to me's extinct,

mul her various objects of delight

tanuli, which might in part my grief have eased, ertor to the vilest now become

: man or worm, the vilest here excel me; They creep, yet see, I dark in light exposed daily fraud, contempt, abuse, and wrong. Vithin doors, or without, still as a fool 1 power of others, never in my own;

Searce half I seem to live, dead more than half. dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon,

rrecoverably dark, total eclipse

Without all hope of day!

reated beam, and thou great Word,

light, and light was over all;

us bereaved thy prime decree?

is dark

the moon,1

or near the change, and in conjunction with the sun.

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 every part; why was the sight
To such a tender ball as th' eye confined,
So obvious and so easy to be quench'd ?
And not, as feeling, through all parts diffused,
That she might look at will through every pore?
Then had I not been thus exiled from light,
As in the land of darkness yet in light,
To live a life half dead, a living death,
And buried; but O yet more miserable!
Myself my sepulchre, a moving grave,
Buried, yet not exempt

By privilege of death and burial

From worst of other evils, pains, and wrongs,
But made hereby obnoxious more

To all the miseries of life,

Life in captivity

Among inhuman foes.

But who are these? for with joint pace I hear
The tread of many feet steering this way;
Perhaps my enemies, who come to stare
At my affliction, and perhaps t' insult,
Their daily practice to afflict me more.
CHOR. This, this is he; softly a while,
Let us not break in upon him;

O change beyond report, thought, or belief!
See how he lies at random, carelessly diffused,1
With languish'd head unpropp'd,

As one past hope, abandon'd,

As by himself given over;

In slavish habit, ill-fitted weeds

O'er-worn and soil'd;

Or do my eyes misrepresent ? can this be he,

That heroic, that renown'd,

1 Stretched out.

In Ramasa-iecht,

Then by main for

The gates of Azza,

mons to in day:

poll ́i mp and on his shoulders bore post, and massy tar,

Up to the hill by Hebron, seat of giants oll

No journey of a Sabbath day, and loaded so;

Like whom the Gentiles feign to bear up heav'n.*
Which shall I first bewail,

Thy bondage or lost sight

Prison within prison

Inseparably dark?

Thou art become, O worst imprisonment!

The dungeon of thyself; thy soul,

Which men enjoying sight oft without cause complain,

1 The Chalybes were famous in the old
ald for their skill in working iron.

the best tempered steel was
halybean. VIRG. Georg. I. 58.
lybes nudi ferrum."-NEWTON.
ine. Ascalon was a city of
gant," like a lion. A heraldic

xv. 17. Ramath-lechi means

the lifting up, or casting away, of the jaw-bone.

5 Another name for Gaza.

The city of the Anakims, who were giants. Judges xv. 13, 14, Num. xiii. 33.

7 A Sabbath day's journey was, with the Jews, three-quarters of a geographical mile.

8 Atlas.