The Complete Poetry of John Milton (146 page)

   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 interlunar
¹⁵
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 obnoxious
¹⁶
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,

               
Irresistible
¹⁸
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,

               
Chalybean
²⁰
temper’d steel, and frock of mail

               
Adamantean Proof;

   135     
But safest he who stood aloof,

               
When insupportably
²¹
his foot advanc’t,

               
In scorn of thir proud arms and warlike tools,

               
Spurn’d them to death by Troops. The bold
Ascalonite
²²

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

   140     
Thir plated backs under his heel;

               
Or grovling soild thir crested helmets in the dust.

               
Then with what trivial
²⁴
weapon came to hand,

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

               
A thousand fore-skins
²⁵
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 Vale
²⁸

               
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 tumors
²⁹
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 Superscription
³⁰
(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 peal
³⁴
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: