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Complete Poetry and Selected Prose of John Milton

Page 78

by John Milton


  The Scene before the Prison in Gaza

  Samson. A little onward lend thy guiding hand

  To these dark steps, a little further on;

  For yonder bank hath choice of Sun or shade,

  There I am wont to sit, when any chance

  5

  Relieves me from my task of servile toyl,

  Daily in the common Prison else enjoyn’d me,

  Where I a Prisoner chain’d, scarce freely draw

  The air imprison’d also, close and damp,

  Unwholsom draught: but here I feel amends,

  10

  The breath of Heav’n fresh-blowing, pure and sweet,

  With day-spring born; here leave me to respire.

  This day a solemn Feast the people hold

  To Dagon12 thir Sea-Idol, and forbid

  Laborious works, unwillingly this rest

  15

  Thir 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

  20

  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.

  O wherefore was my birth from Heav’n foretold

  Twice by an Angel, who at last in sight

  25

  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 Godlike presence, and from some great act

  Or benefit reveal’d to Abraham’s race?

  30

  Why was my breeding order’d and prescrib’d

  As of a person separate to God,

  Design’d for great exploits; if I must dye

  Betray’d, Captiv’d, and both my Eyes put out,

  Made of my Enemies the scorn and gaze;

  35

  To grind in Brazen Fetters under task

  With this Heav’n-gifted strength? O glorious strength

  Put to the labour of a Beast, debas’t

  Lower then bondslave! Promise was that I

  Should Israel from Philistian yoke deliver;

  40

  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

  45

  Had been fulfill’d but through mine own default,

  Whom have I to complain of but my self?

  Who this high gift of strength committed to me,

  In what part lodg’d, how easily bereft me,

  Under the Seal of silence could not keep,

  50

  But weakly to a woman must reveal it,

  O’recome with importunity and tears.

  O impotence of mind, in body strong!

  But what is strength without a double share

  Of wisdom? Vast, unwieldy, burdensom,

  55

  Proudly secure, yet liable to fall

  By weakest suttleties, not made to rule,

  But to subserve where wisdom bears command.

  God, when he gave me strength, to shew withal

  How slight the gift was, hung it in my Hair.

  60

  But peace, I must not quarrel with the will

  Of highest dispensation,13 which herein

  Happ’ly had ends above my reach to know:

  Suffices that to me strength is my bane,

  And proves the sourse of all my miseries;

  65

  So many, and so huge, that each apart

  Would ask14 a life to wail, but chief of all,

  O loss of sight, of thee I most complain!

  Blind among enemies, O worse then chains,

  Dungeon, or beggery, or decrepit age!

  70

  Light the prime work of God to me is extinct,

  And all her various objects of delight

  Annull’d, which might in part my grief have eas’d,

  Inferiour to the vilest now become

  Of man or worm; the vilest here excel me,

  75

  They creep, yet see, I dark in light expos’d

  To daily fraud, contempt, abuse and wrong,

  Within doors, or without, still as a fool,

  In power of others, never in my own;

  Scarce half I seem to live, dead more then half.

  80

  O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon,

  Irrecoverably dark, total Eclipse

  Without all hope of day!

  O first created Beam, and thou great Word,

  Let there be light, and light was over all;

  85

  Why am I thus bereav’d thy prime decree?

  The Sun to me is dark

  And silent as the Moon,

  When she deserts the night

  Hid in her vacant interlunar15 cave.

  90

  Since light so necessary is to life,

  And almost life it self, 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 confin’d?

  95

  So obvious and so easie to be quench’t,

  And not as feeling through all parts diffus’d,

  That she might look at will through every pore?

  Then had I not been thus exil’d from light;

  As in the land of darkness yet in light,

  100

  To live a life half dead, a living death,

  And buried; but O yet more miserable!

  My self, my Sepulcher, a moving Grave,

  Buried, yet not exempt

  By priviledge of death and burial

  105

  From worst of other evils, pains and wrongs,

  But made hereby obnoxious16 more

  To all the miseries of life,

  Life in captivity

  Among inhuman foes.

  110

  But who are these? for with joint pace I hear

  The tread of many feet stealing this way;

  Perhaps my enemies who come to stare

  At my affliction, and perhaps to insult,

  Thir daily practice to afflict me more.

  115

  Chorus. 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, carelesly diffus’d,17

  With languish’t head unpropt,

  120

  As one past hope, abandon’d,

  And by himself giv’n over;

  In slavish habit, ill-fitted weeds

  O’re worn and soild;

  Or do my eyes misrepresent? Can this be hee,

  125

  That Heroic that Renown’d,

  Irresistible18 Samson? whom unarm’d

  No strength of man, or fiercest wild beast could withstand;

  Who tore the Lion, as the Lion tears the Kid,19

  Ran on embattell’d Armies clad in Iron,

  130

  And weaponless himself,

  Made Arms ridiculous, useless the forgery

  Of brazen shield and spear, the hammer’d Cuirass,

  Chalybean20 temper’d steel, and frock of mail

  Adamantean Proof;

  135

  But safest he who stood aloof,

  When insupportably21 his foot advanc’t,

  In scorn of thir proud arms and warlike tools,

  Spurn’d them to death by Troops. The bold Ascalonite22

  Fled from his Lion ramp,23 old Warriors turn’d

  140

&
nbsp; Thir plated backs under his heel;

  Or grovling soild thir crested helmets in the dust.

  Then with what trivial24 weapon came to hand,

  The Jaw of a dead Ass, his sword of bone,

  A thousand fore-skins25 fell, the flower of Palestin

  145

  In Ramath-lechi famous to this day:

  Then by main force pull’d up, and on his shoulders bore

  The Gates of Azza, Post, and massie Bar

  Up to the Hill of Hebron, seat of Giants old,

  No journey of a Sabbath day, and loaded so;

  150

  Like whom the Gentiles feign to bear up Heav’n.26

  Which shall I first bewail,

  Thy Bondage or lost Sight,

  Prison within Prison

  Inseparably dark?

  155

  Thou art become (O worst imprisonment!)

  The Dungeon of thy self; thy Soul

  (Which Men enjoying sight oft without cause complain)

  Imprison’d now indeed,

  In real darkness of the body dwells,

  160

  Shut up from outward light

  T’ incorporate with gloomy night;

  For inward light alas

  Puts forth no visual beam.

  O mirror of our fickle state,27

  165

  Since man on earth unparallel’d!

  The rarer thy example stands,

  By how much from the top of wondrous glory,

  Strongest of mortal men,

  To lowest pitch of abject fortune thou art fall’n.

  170

  For him I reckon not in high estate

  Whom long descent of birth

  Or the sphear of fortune raises;

  But thee whose strength, while vertue was her mate,

  Might have subdu’d the Earth,

  175

  Universally crown’d with highest praises.

  Samson. I hear the sound of words, thir sense the air

  Dissolves unjointed e’re it reach my ear.

  Chorus. Hee speaks, let us draw nigh. Matchless in might,

  The glory late of Israel, now the grief;

  180

  We come thy friends and neighbours not unknown

  From Eshtaol and Zora’s fruitful Vale28

  To visit or bewail thee, or if better,

  Counsel or Consolation we may bring,

  Salve to thy Sores; apt words have power to swage

  185

  The tumors29 of a troubl’d mind,

  And are as Balm to fester’d wounds.

  Samson. Your coming, Friends, revives me, for I learn

  Now of my own experience, not by talk,

  How counterfeit a coin they are who friends

  190

  Bear in their Superscription30 (of the most

  I would be understood): in prosperous days

  They swarm, but in adverse withdraw their head

  Not to be found, though sought. Yee see, O friends,

  How many evils have enclos’d me round;

  195

  Yet that which was the worst now least afflicts me,

  Blindness, for had I sight, confus’d with shame,

  How could I once look up, or heave the head,

  Who like a foolish Pilot have shipwrack’t

  My Vessel trusted to me from above,

  200

  Gloriously rigg’d; and for a word, a tear,

  Fool, have divulg’d the secret gift of God

  To a deceitful Woman: tell me Friends,

  Am I not sung and proverb’d for a Fool

  In every street, do they not say, how well

  205

  Are come upon him his deserts? yet why?

  Immeasurable strength they might behold

  In me, of wisdom nothing more then mean;

  This with the other should, at least, have paird,31

  These two proportiond ill drove me transverse.32

  210

  Chorus. Tax not divine disposal, wisest Men

  Have err’d, and by bad Women been deceiv’d;

  And shall again, pretend they ne’re so wise.

  Deject not then so overmuch thy self,

  Who hast of sorrow thy full load besides;

  215

  Yet truth to say, I oft have heard men wonder

  Why thou shouldst wed Philistian women rather

  Then of thine own Tribe fairer, or as fair,

  At least of thy own Nation, and as noble.

  Samson. The first I saw at Timna,33 and she pleas’d

  220

  Mee, not my Parents, that I sought to wed,

  The daughter of an Infidel: they knew not

  That what I motion’d was of God; I knew

  From intimate impulse, and therefore urg’d

  The Marriage on; that by occasion hence

  225

  I might begin Israel’s Deliverance,

  The work to which I was divinely call’d;

  She proving false, the next I took to Wife

  (O that I never had! fond wish too late)

  Was in the Vale of Sorec, Dalila,

  230

  That specious Monster, my accomplisht snare.

  I thought it lawful from my former act,

  And the same end; still watching to oppress

  Israel’s oppressours: of what now I suffer

  She was not the prime cause, but I my self,

  235

  Who vanquisht with a peal34 of words (O weakness!)

  Gave up my fort of silence to a Woman.

  Chorus. In seeking just occasion to provoke

  The Philistine, thy Countries Enemy,

  Thou never wast remiss, I bear thee witness:

  240

  Yet Israel still serves with all his Sons.35

  Samson. That fault I take not on me, but transfer

  On Israel’s Governours, and Heads of Tribes,

  Who seeing those great acts which God had done

  Singly by me against their Conquerours

  245

  Acknowledg’d not, or not at all consider’d

  Deliverance offerd: I on th’ other side

  Us’d no ambition to commend my deeds,36

  The deeds themselves, though mute, spoke loud the dooer;

  But they persisted deaf, and would not seem

  250

  To count them things worth notice, till at length

  Thir Lords the Philistines with gather’d powers

  Enterd Judea seeking mee, who then

  Safe to the rock of Etham was retir’d,

  Not flying, but fore-casting in what place

  255

  To set upon them, what advantag’d best;

  Mean while the men of Judah to prevent

  The harrass of thir Land, beset me round;

  I willingly on some conditions came

  Into thir hands, and they as gladly yield me

  260

  To the uncircumcis’d a welcom prey,

  Bound with two cords; but cords to me were threds

  Toucht with the flame: on thir whole Host I flew

  Unarm’d, and with a trivial weapon fell’d

  Their choicest youth; they only liv’d who fled.

  265

  Had Judah that day join’d, or one whole Tribe,

  They had by this possess’d the Towers of Gath,37

  And lorded over them whom now they serve;

  But what more oft in Nations grown corrupt,

  And by thir vices brought to servitude,

  270

  Then to love Bondage more then Liberty,

  Bondage with ease then strenuous liberty;38

  And to despise, or envy, or suspect

  Whom God hath of his special favour rais’d

  As thir Deliverer; if he aught begin,

  275

  How frequent to desert him, and at last

  To heap ingratitude on worthiest deeds?

&n
bsp; Chorus. Thy words to my remembrance bring

  How Succoth and the Fort of Penuel

  This great Deliverer contemn’d,

  280

  The matchless Gideon in pursuit

  Of Madian and her vanquisht Kings:39

  And how ingrateful Ephraim

  Had dealt with Jephtha, who by argument,

  Not worse then by his shield and spear

  285

  Defended Israel from the Ammonite,

  Had not his prowess quell’d thir pride

  In that sore battel when so many dy’d

  Without Reprieve adjudg’d to death,

  For want of well pronouncing Shibboleth.40

  290

  Samson. Of such examples add mee to the roul,

  Mee easily indeed mine41 may neglect,

  But Gods propos’d deliverance not so.

  Chorus. Just are the ways of God,42

  And justifiable to Men;

  295

  Unless there be who think not God at all,

  If any be, they walk obscure;43

  For of such Doctrine never was there School,

  But the heart of the Fool,44

  And no man therein Doctor but himself.

  300

  Yet more there be who doubt his ways not just,

  As to his own edicts, found contradicting,

  Then give the rains to wandring thought,

  Regardless of his glories diminution;

  Till by thir own perplexities involv’d

  305

  They ravel more, still less resolv’d,

  But never find self-satisfying solution.

  As if they would confine th’ interminable,

  And tie him to his own prescript,

  Who made our Laws to bind us, not himself,

  310

  And hath full right t’ exempt

  Whom so it pleases him by choice

  From National obstriction,45 without taint

  Of sin, or legal debt;

  For with his own Laws he can best dispence.

  315

  He would not else who never wanted means,

  Nor in respect of th’ enemy just cause

  To set his people free,

 

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