Sams. O 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
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 corporeal sense.

My griefs not only pain me

As a lingering disease,

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

Rankle, and fester, and gangrene,

To black mortification.

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

Dire inflammation, which no cooling herb
Or med'cinal 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:
Thence faintings, swoonings of despair,

And sense of Heaven's desertion.

I was his nursling once, and choice delight, His destined from the womb,

Promised by heavenly message twice descending. Under his special eye

Abstemious I grew up, and thrived amain;

He led me on to mightiest deeds,

Above the nerve of mortal arm,

Against the uncircumcised, our enemies :
But now hath cast me off as never known,
And to those cruel enemies,

Whom I by his appointment had provoked,
Left me all helpless with the irreparable loss
Of sight, reserved 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 miseries, and the balm.
Chor. Many are the sayings of the wise,
In ancient and in modern books inroll'd,
Extolling patience as the truest fortitude;
And to the bearing well of all calamities,
All chances incident to mau's frail life,
Consolatories writ

With studied argument, and much persuasion sought Lenient of grief and anxious thought:

But with the afflicted in his pangs their sound

Little prevails, or rather seems a tune

Harsh, and of dissonant mood from his complaint;

Unless he feel within

Some source of consolation from above,

Secret refreshings, that repair his strength,

And fainting spirits uphold.

God of our fathers, what is man!

That thou towards him with hand so various,

Or might I say contrarious,

Temper'st thy providence through his short course, Not evenly, as thou rulest

The angelic orders, and inferior creatures mute, Irrational and brute.

H

Nor do I name of men the common rout,
That, wandering loose about,

Grow up and perish as the summer-fly,
Heads without name no more remember'd;
But such as thou hast solemnly elected,
With gifts and graces eminently adorn'd,
To some great work, thy glory,

And people's safety, which in part they effect:
Yet toward these thus dignified, thou oft,
Amidst their height of noon,

Changest thy countenance, and thy hand, with no regard

Of highest favours past

From thee on them, or them to thee of service.
Nor only dost degrade them, or remit

To life obscured, which were a fair dismission,
But throw'st them lower than thou didst exalt
them high,

Unseemly falls in human eye,

Too grievous for the trespass or omission:
Oft leavest them to the hostile sword

Of heathen and profane, their carcasses

To dogs and fowls a prey, or else captíved;

Or to the unjust tribunals, under change of times,
And condemnation of the ingrateful multitude.
If these they 'scape, perhaps in poverty

With sickness and disease thou bow'st them down,
Painful diseases and deform'd,

In crude old age;

Though not disordinate, yet causeless, suffering

The punishment of dissolute days: in fine,

Just, or unjust, alike seem miserable,

For oft alike both come to evil end.

So deal not with this once thy glorious cha mpion,

The image of thy strength, and mighty minister.
What do I beg? how hast thou dealt already ?
Behold him in this state calamitous, and turn
His labours, for thou canst, to peaceful end.—
But who is this, what thing of sea or land?
Female of sex it seems,

That so bedeck'd, ornate, and gay,
Comes this way sailing

Like a stately ship

Of Tarsus, bound for the isles

Of Javan or Gadire

With all her bravery on, and tackle trim,
Sails fill'd, and streamers waving,

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

Some rich Philistian matron she may seem;
And now at nearer view, no other certain

Than Dalila thy wife.

Sams. My wife! my traitress: let her not come

near me.

Chor. Yet on she moves, now stands and eyes

thee fix'd,

About to have spoke; but now, with head declined, Like a fair flower surcharged with dew, she weeps, And words address'd seem into tears dissolved, Wetting the borders of her silken veil :

But now again she makes address to speak.

Enter DALILA.

Dal. With doubtful feet and wavering resolution

came,

still dreading thy displeasure, Samson,

Which to have merited, without excuse,

I cannot but acknowledge; yet, if tears

May expiate, (though the fact more evil drew
In the perverse event than I foresaw)

My penance hath not slacken'd, though my pardon
No way assured. But conjugal affection,
Prevailing over fear and timorous doubt,

Hath led me on, desirous to behold

Once more thy face, and know of thy estate,
If aught in my ability may serve

To lighten what thou suffer'st, and appease
Thy mind with what amends is in my power,
Though late, yet in some part to recompense
My rash, but more unfortunate, misdeed.

Sams. Out, out, Hyena! these are thy wonted arts,

And arts of every woman false like thee,
To break all faith, all vows, deceive, betray,
Then as repentant to submit, beseech,
And reconcilement move with feign'd remorse,
Confess, and promise wonders in her change;
Not truly penitent, but chief to try

Her husband, how far urged his patience bears,
His virtue or weakness which way to assail :
Then, with more cautious and instructed skill
Again transgresses, and again submits;
That wisest and best men, full oft beguiled,
With goodness principled not to reject
The penitent, but ever to forgive,
Are drawn to wear out miserable days,
Entangled with a poisonous bosom snake;
If not by quick destruction soon cut off,
As I by thee, to ages an example.

Dal. Yet hear me, Samson; not that I endeavour To lessen or exteunate my offence,