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SAMSON AGONISTES. Q3
O'ercome with importunity and tears.
O impotence of mind, in body ftrong !
But what is ftrength without a double fhare
Of wifdom, vaft, unwieldy, burdenfome,
Proudly fecure, yet liable to fall
By weakeft fubtleties, not made to rule,
But to fubferve where wifdom bears command !
God, when he gave me ftrength, to fhow withal
How flight the gift was, hung it in my hair.
But peace, I muft not quarrel with the will
Of higheft difpenfation, which herein
Haply had ends above my reach to know:
Suffices that to me ftrength is my bane,
And proves the fource of all my miferies;
So many, and fo huge, that each apart
Would aik a life to wail, but chief of all,
O lofs of fight, of thee I moft complain!
Blind among enemies, O worfe than chains,
Dungeon, or beggary, or decrepit age!
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,
Inferior to the vileft now become
Of man or worm; the vileft here excel me,
They creep, yet fee, I dark in light expos'd
To daily fraud, contempt, abufe, and wrong,
Within doors, or without, ftill as a fool,
In pow'r of others, never in my own;
Scarce half I feem to live, dead more than hal
O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon,
Irrecoverably dark, total eclipfe