SAMSON AGONISTES
��301
��And strongest drinks our chief support of
health, When God with these forbidden made
choice to rear
His mighty Champion, strong above com- pare, Whose drink was only from the liquid
brook ! Sams. But what availed this temperance,
not complete
Against another object more enticing ? What boots it at one gate to make de- fence, 560 And at another to let in the foe, Effeminately vanquished ? by which means, Now bliud, disheartened, shamed, dishon- oured, quelled,
To what can I be useful ? wherein serve My nation, and the work from Heaven im- posed ?
But to sit idle on the household hearth, A burdeuous drone; to visitants a gaze, Or pitied object; these redundant locks, Robustious to no purpose, clustering down, Vain monument of strength; till length of years 57 o
And sedentary numbness craze my limbs To a contemptible old age obscure. Here rather let me drudge, and earn my
bread,
Till vermin, or the draff of servile food, Consume me, and oft-invocated death Hasten the welcome end of all my pains. Man. Wilt thou then serve the Philis- tines with that gift Which was expressly given thee to annoy
them?
Better at home lie bed-rid, not only idle, Inglorious, uuimployed, with age out- worn. 580 But God, who caused a fountain at thy
prayer From the dry ground to spring, thy thirst
to allay
After the brunt of battel, can as easy Cause light again within thy eyes to spring, Wherewith to serve him better than thou
hast. And I persuade me so. Why else this
strength
Miraculous yet remaining in those locks ? His might continues in thee not for naught, Nor shall his wondrous gifts be frustrate thus.
��Sams. All otherwise to me my thoughts
portend 590
That these dark orbs no more shall treat
with light,
Nor the 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 shame, And I shall shortly be with them that rest. Man. Believe not these suggestions,
which proceed
From anguish of the mind, and humours black 600
That mingle with thy fancy. I, however, Must not omit a father's timely care To prosecute the means of thy deliverance By ransom or how else: meanwhile becalm, And healing words from these thy friends
admit. Sams. Oh, that torment should not be
confined
To the body's wounds and sores, With maladies innumerable In heart, head, breast, and reins, But must secret passage find 610
To the inmost 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 lingering disease, But, finding no redress, ferment and rage; Nor less than wounds immedicable 620
Rankle, and fester, and gangrene, To black mortification. Thoughts, my tormentors, armed with
deadly stings,
Mangle my apprehensive tenderest parts, Exasperate, exulcerate, and raise Dire inflammation, which no cooling herb Or medicinal liquor can assuage, Nor breath of vernal air from snowy Alp. Sleep hath forsook and given me o'er To death's benumbing opium as my only cure ; 630
Thence faintings, swoonings of despair, And sense of Heaven's desertion.
I was his nursling once and choice de- light, His destined from the womb,
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