The Complete Poetry of John Milton (149 page)

   545     
Or taste that cheers the heart of Gods and men,

               
Allure thee from the cool Crystalline stream.

           
      
       
Samson.
Where ever fountain or fresh current flow’d

               
Against the Eastern ray, translucent, pure,

               
With touch ætherial of Heav’ns fiery rod

   550     
I drank, from the clear milkie juice
⁶⁴
allaying

               
Thirst, and refresht; nor envy’d them the grape

               
Whose heads that turbulent liquor fills with fumes.

           
      
       
Chorus.
O madness, to think use of strongest wines

               
And strongest drinks our chief support of health,

   555     
When God with these forbid’n made choice to rear

               
His mighty Champion, strong above compare,

               
Whose drink was only from the liquid brook.

           
      
       
Samson.
But what avail’d this temperance, not compleat

               
Against another object more enticing?

   560     
What boots it at one gate to make defence,

               
And at another to let in the foe

               
Effeminatly vanquish’t? by which means,

               
Now blind, disheart’n’d, sham’d, dishonours, quell’d,

               
To what can I be useful, wherein serve

   565     
My Nation, and the work from Heav’n impos’d,

               
But to sit idle on the houshold hearth,

               
A burdenous drone; to visitants a gaze,

               
Or pitied object, these redundant locks

               
Robustious to no purpose clustring down,

   570     
Vain monument of strength; till length of years

               
And sedentary numness craze
⁶⁵
my limbs

               
To a contemptible old age obscure.

               
Here rather let me drudge and earn my bread,

               
Till vermin or the draff
⁶⁶
of servil food

   575     
Consume me, and oft-invocated death

               
Hast’n the welcom end of all my pains.

           
      
       
Manoa.
Wilt thou then serve the
Philistines
with that gift

               
Which was expresly giv’n thee to annoy them?

               
Better at home lie bed-rid, not only idle,

   580     
Inglorious, unimploy’d, with age out-worn.

               
But God who caus’d a fountain at thy prayer

               
From the dry ground to spring,
⁶⁷
thy thirst t’ allay

               
After the brunt of battel, can as easie

               
Cause light again within thy eies to spring,

   585     
Wherewith to serve him better then thou hast;

               
And I perswade me so; why else his strength

               
Miraculous yet remaining in those locks?

               
His might continues in thee not for naught,

               
Nor shall his wondrous gifts be frustrate thus.

   590  
      
       
Samson.
All otherwise to me my thoughts portend,

               
That these dark orbs no more shall treat with light,

               
Nor th’ other light of life continue long,

               
But yield to double darkness nigh at hand:

               
So much I feel my genial
⁶⁸
spirits droop,

   595     
My hopes all flat, nature within me seems

               
In all her functions weary of her self;

               
My race of glory run, and race of shame,

               
And I shall shortly be with them that rest.

           
      
       
Manoa.
Believe not these suggestions which proceed

   600     
From anguish of the mind and humours black,
⁶⁹

               
That mingle with thy fancy. I however

               
Must not omit a Fathers timely care

               
To prosecute the means of thy deliverance

               
By ransom or how else: mean while be calm,

   605     
And healing words from these thy friends admit.

           
      
       
Samson.
O that torment should not be confin’d

               
To the bodies wounds and sores

               
With maladies innumerable

               
In heart, head, brest, and reins;

   610     
But must secret passage find

               
To th’ inmost mind,

               
There exercise all his fierce accidents,
⁷⁰

               
And on her purest spirits prey,

               
As on entrails, joints, and limbs,

   615     
With answerable pains, but more intense,

               
Though void of corporal sense.

           
      
       My griefs not only pain me

               
As a lingring disease,

               
But finding no redress, ferment and rage,

   620     
Nor less then wounds immedicable

               
Ranckle, and fester, and gangrene,

               
To black mortification.

               
Thoughts my Tormentors arm’d with deadly stings

               
Mangle my apprehensive tenderest parts,
⁷¹

   625     
Exasperate, exulcerate, and raise

               
Dire inflammation which no cooling herb

               
Or medcinal liquor can asswage,

               
Nor breath of Vernal Air from snowy
Alp.

               
Sleep hath forsook and giv’n me o’re

   630     
To deaths benumming Opium as my only cure.

               
Thence faintings, swounings of despair,

               
And sense of Heav’ns desertion.

           
      
       I was his nursling once and choice delight,

               
His destin’d from the womb,

   635     
Promisd by Heav’nly message twice descending.

               
Under his special eie

               
Abstemious I grew up and thriv’d amain;

               
He led me on to mightiest deeds

               
Above the nerve of mortal arm

   640     
Against th’ uncircumcis’d, our enemies.

               
But now hath cast me off as never known,

               
And to those cruel enemies,

               
Whom I by his appointment had provok’t,

               
Left me all helpless with th’ irreparable loss

   645     
Of sight, reserv’d alive to be repeated

               
The subject of thir 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,

   650     
No long petition, speedy death,

               
The close of all my miseries, and the balm.

           
      
       
Chorus.
Many are the sayings of the wise

               
In antient and in modern books enroll’d;

               
Extolling Patience as the truest fortitude;

   655     
And to the bearing well of all calamities,

               
All chances incident to mans frail life

               
Consolatories writ

               
With studied argument, and much perswasion sought

               
Lenient
⁷²
of grief and anxious thought,

   660     
But with th’ afflicted in his pangs thir sound

               
Little prevails, or rather seems a tune,

               
Harsh, and of dissonant mood from his complaint,

               
Unless he feel within

               
Some sourse of consolation from above;

   665     
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,

   670     
Temperst thy providence through his short course,

               
Not ev’nly, as thou rul’st

               
Th’ Angelic orders and inferiour creatures mute,

               
Irrational and brute.

               
Nor do I name of men the common rout,

   675     
That wandring loose about

               
Grow up and perish, as the summer flie,

               
Heads without name no more rememberd,

               
But such as thou hast solemnly elected,

               
With gifts and graces eminently adorn’d

   680     
To some great work, thy glory,

               
And peoples safety, which in part they effect:

               
Yet toward these thus dignifi’d, thou oft

               
Amidst thir highth of noon,

               
Changest thy countenance, and thy hand with no regard

   685     
Of highest favours past

               
From thee on them, or them to thee of service.

           
      
       Nor only dost degrade them, or remit

               
To life obscur’d, which were a fair dismission,

               
But throw’st them lower then thou didst exalt them high,

   690     
Unseemly falls in human eie,

               
Too grievous for the trespass or omission,

               
Oft leav’st them to the hostile sword

               
Of Heathen and prophane, thir carkasses

               
To dogs and fowls a prey, or else captiv’d:

   695     
Or to th’ unjust tribunals, under change of times,

               
And condemnation of th’ ingrateful multitude.

               
If these they scape, perhaps in poverty

               
With sickness and disease thou bow’st them down,

               
Painful diseases and deform’d,

   700     
In crude
⁷³
old age;

               
Though not disordinate, yet causless suffring

               
The punishment of dissolute days, in fine,

               
Just or unjust, alike seem miserable,

               
For oft alike, both come to evil end.