THE PLAIN TEXT POETS 
 
 MILTON'S 
 IORTER POEMS 
 
 6LACKIE AND SON LIMITED LONDON 11 
 
JOHN MILTON 
 
 From a portrait in the Bruckmann Collection 
 
MILTON'S 
 SHORTER POEMS 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 G. B. SELLON 
 
 Second Mistress, Francis Holland School, 
 Clarence Gate, London 
 
 BLACKIE & SON LIMITED 
 
 LONDON AND GLASGOW 
 
BLACKIE & SON LIMITED 
 50 Old Bailey* London 
 17 Stanhope Street, Glasgow 
 
 BLACKIE & SON (INDIA) LIMITED 
 
 Warwick House, Fort Street, Bombay 
 
 BLACKIE & SON (CANADA) LIMITED 
 1118 Bay Street, Toronto 
 
 The Plain-Text Poets 
 
 BROWNING (R.) Shorter Poems. Introduction by Miss 
 
 Edith Fry, M.A.(Lond.). 
 
 ROBERT BURNS Select Poems. Arranged in kindred groups. 
 CHAUCER The Knightes Tale. Introduction and Glossary 
 
 by R. J. Cunliffe, M.A., LL.B. 
 OLIVER GOLDSMITH Select Poems. Introduction by Miss 
 
 E. Margery Fox. 
 THOMAS GRAY Select Poems. Introduction by the Rev. 
 
 W. C. Eppstein, M.A., D.D. 
 LONGFELLOW Evangeline, and other Poems. Introduction 
 
 by Miss Clay, B.A. 
 LONGFELLOW The Song of Hiawatha. Introduction by 
 
 Miss Amy F. Edwards (Hist. Tripos, Cambridge). 
 MACAULAY Lays of Ancient Rome, &c. Introduction by 
 
 W. M. L. Hutchinson. 
 MILTON Shorter Poems. Introduction by Miss G. B. 
 
 Sellon. 
 
 SCOTT Marmion. Introduction by R. F. Cholmeley, M.A. 
 SCOTT Lady of the Lake. Introduction by J. V. Saunders, 
 
 M.A. 
 SCOTT Lay of the Last Minstrel. Introduction by Miss 
 
 A. B. Covernton. 
 TENNYSON Earlier Poems. Introduction by the Rev. H. 
 
 Buchanan Ryley, M.A. 
 TENNYSON The Princess. Introduction by J. Hubert 
 
 Jagger, M.A., D.Litt. 
 WORDSWORTH Select Poems. 
 Historical Lyrics and Ballads. Edited by S. E. Winbolt, 
 
 M.A., Christ's Hospital. Book I Before 1485. Book 
 
 II After 1485. 
 
 Scottish Ballads. Edited by Robert Stewart, M.A. 
 Scottish Vernacular Poetry. From Barbour to Burns. 
 
 Edited by T. D. Robb, M.A. 
 
 Printed in Great Britain by Blaekie &* Son, Ltd., Glasgow 
 
fl 
 o&'i 
 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTE 
 
 Milton's life is divided into three clearly marked 
 periods, which makes it very easy to remember 
 the chronological order of his works. It is worth 
 while to study Milton's life at the same time as 
 his poetry, because the one helps to explain the 
 other. 
 
 Milton was born on December 9, 1608, in Bread 
 Street, Cheapside, went to St. Paul's School in 
 1620, and to Cambridge in 1625. After leaving 
 Cambridge, in 1632, he lived with his father at 
 Horton in Buckinghamshire, and began that 
 course of " industrious and select reading " which 
 was to prepare him for his future work. 
 
 While at College, Milton wrote the Hymn on 
 the Nativity in 1629; and at Horton, L Allegro 
 and // Penseroso in 1633, Comus in 1634, and 
 Lycidas in 1637. 
 
 The Hymn on the Nativity is a beautiful poem 
 which shows Milton's early mastery of style and 
 command of language, his imagination, his love 
 of the classics, the curious way he has of mix- 
 
 r "095 
 
4 INTRODUCTION 
 
 ing classical and Biblical allusions, and his re- 
 ligious and devout mind. 
 
 L Allegro and // Penseroso, written in his time 
 of peace and literary leisure, give us glimpses of 
 Milton himself. We can see him both in the 
 cheerful austerity of // Penseroso, which means 
 the thoughtful, not the melancholy, man, and in 
 the austere joyousness of L' Allegro. They show 
 Milton to be an observer of Nature, although not 
 with the wonderful all-embracing grasp of Shake- 
 speare, nor with the loving and reverent worship 
 of Wordsworth. Milton's wide reading is shown 
 in the allusions to the classics, to Ben Jonson, 
 to Shakespeare, also to Chaucer and Spenser. 
 
 Conius is the most famous example of a masque 
 which has come down to us. 
 
 These masques were generally allegorical, and 
 were written for some particular occasion, such 
 as a marriage or Court festival. The performers 
 wore masks, the dresses were very gay, and the 
 story was diversified with songs and dances and 
 stately processions, until the masque became a 
 very costly and elaborate performance. 
 
 Milton's Comus was written for the festivities 
 which were held when the Earl of Bridgewater 
 went to Ludlow Castle in 1634 to take up his 
 duties as President of the Council of Wales, The 
 
INTRODUCTION 5 
 
 music was composed by Henry Lawes, a well- 
 known musician, whom Milton has praised in one 
 of the sonnets included in this book. The play 
 was acted on the night of Michaelmas, 1634, in 
 the Great Hall of Ludlow Castle. Lawes took 
 the part of Thyrsis, and Lord Bridgewater's 
 daughter, Lady Alice Egerton, and her brothers, 
 Viscount Brackley and Mr. Thomas Egerton, 
 played the parts of the Lady and the two Brothers. 
 Considered as a drama, Comus has certain faults, 
 but no one who reads it can fail to be moved 
 by the stately charm of the words, the glamour 
 of romance and mystery, and the passionate sense 
 of moral beauty. It is difficult to choose passages 
 for quotation, as the poem is such a complete 
 and perfect whole, but the following lines give 
 the keynote to the whole poem: 
 
 ( So dear to heaVn is saintly chastity, 
 That when a soul is found sincerely so, 
 A thousand liveried angels lackey her, 
 Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt, 
 And in clear dream, and solemn vision, 
 Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear, 
 Till oft converse with heav'nly habitants 
 Begin to cast a beam on th' outward shape, 
 The unpolluted temple of mind, 
 And turns it by degrees to the soul's essence, 
 Till all be made immortal '. 
 
6 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Lycidas is also a poem written for a special occa- 
 sion; it is one of a collection of memorial verses 
 published by the college friends of Edward King, 
 Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge, who was 
 drowned while on a voyage from Chester to Ireland. 
 It is impossible to praise adequately the ex- 
 traordinary perfection of this poem, the wonderful 
 effect which is gained by the irregularity of the 
 rhyme, the variety of rhythm, the skilful use of 
 alliteration, and the imaginative force, which make 
 the charm of such lines as: 
 
 ' While the still morn went out with sandals grey ', 
 or 
 
 4 Bid Amaranthus all his beauty shed ', 
 or 
 
 6 The pilot of the Galilean Lake ', 
 or again 
 
 * . . . or whether thou . . , 
 Sleepst by the fable of Bellerus old 
 Where the great vision of the guarded mount 
 Looks towards Namancos and Bayona's hold'. 
 
 Mark Pattison has given Lycidas high praise: 
 " This piece, unmatched in the whole range of 
 English poetry, and never again equalled by Milton 
 himself, leaves all criticism behind. Indeed, so 
 high is the poetic note here reached that the 
 common ear fails to catch it. Lycidas^ is the 
 touchstone of taste." 
 
INTRODUCTION 7 
 
 In 1638 Milton travelled through France and 
 Italy, where he saw many famous places and 
 met many interesting people, including Galileo. 
 When the news of the beginnings of the Civil 
 War reached him, he decided that it was his duty 
 to return, and this brings the happy and fortunate 
 part of his life to a close. 
 
 Milton began to earn his living by turning 
 schoolmaster, but soon devoted himself entirely to 
 politics, and took a strenuous part in the troubled 
 events of the next twenty years. He became 
 Latin Secretary to the Council of State, and wrote 
 many prose pamphlets, of which Areopagitica is 
 the best. Most of the Sonnets belong to this 
 period, and they are the only poetic work which 
 he produced until after the Restoration. They 
 are of great interest, both from their severe per- 
 fection of form and from the fact that, as Hazlitt 
 points out in his Table Talk, "they are a kind 
 of pensive record of past achievements, loves, and 
 friendships, and a noble exhortation to himself 
 to bear up with cheerful hope and confidence 
 to the last". A careful reading of the Sonnets 
 will justify this statement, and give fresh insight 
 into Milton's character. The Sonnet on his blind- 
 ness is too well known to quote, but the second on 
 the same subject, dedicated to Cyriack Skirmer> 
 
8 INTRODUCTION 
 
 is not so well known as it deserves to be. It 
 contains the brave words: 
 
 ' . . . yet I argue not 
 Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot 
 Of heart or hope ; but still bear up, and steer 
 Right onward '. 
 
 When the Restoration took place, Milton was 
 considered to be in some danger, owing to the 
 prominent part he had taken in defending the 
 execution of Charles I; he therefore lived in re- 
 tirement until the Act of Indemnity was passed. 
 Afterwards he moved to a house in Artillery 
 Walk, Bunhill Fields, where he remained until 
 his death, only leaving London once to go to 
 a house in Chalfont St. Giles, during the Plague. 
 He had now married his third wife, who "kept 
 her house and her husband excellently well". 
 
 It was during this third period of his life that 
 Milton published Paradise Lost, in 1667; and 
 Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes, in 1671. 
 
 On reading Samson Agonistes certain obvious 
 criticisms suggest themselves it is lacking in 
 some dramatic qualities, there is great diffuseness, 
 the plot drags, the incidents of Dalila and Har- 
 apha are not essential to the unfolding of the 
 plot, and there are signs in it that Milton was 
 now growing old. But, for all that, the poem 
 
INTRODUCTION 9 
 
 is a great and magnificent one, none the less 
 great because of the strong personal element in 
 it. The personal element is felt nowhere more 
 poignantly than in Samson's lament over his 
 blindness. 
 
 1 ... But chief of all, 
 O loss of sight, of thee I most complain ! 
 Blind among enemies ! O worse than chains, 
 
 In power of others, never in my own. 
 
 O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon.' 
 
 Throughout the whole poem, Milton makes us 
 feel the personal point of view; it is he who is 
 blind and old and poor, who sees the death and 
 captivity of his friends, and the triumph of that 
 cause which meant, in his eyes, all that was evil 
 and corrupt. 
 
 If there is not quite all the former beauty and 
 sureness, yet there is quite enough to make us 
 feel the power and stateliness of the most stately 
 of all poets, and he rises to his old power in 
 such lines as the following, which describe Milton 
 quite as much as Samson: 
 
 * Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail 
 Or knock the breast; no weakness, no contempt, 
 Dispraise or blame ; nothing but well and fair, 
 And what may quiet us in a death so noble '. 
 
10 INTRODUCTION 
 
 It should also be remembered that Milton has 
 planned his drama on the Greek model, and, as 
 he points out in the preface, " they only will bes 
 judge (his drama) who are not unacquainted with 
 Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the three 
 tragic poets unequalled yet by any, and the best 
 rule to all who endeavour to write tragedy". 
 Those of us who are unacquainted with the work 
 of these three great poets may take this for our 
 consolation that in Samson Agonistes we get the 
 nearest approach possible to Athenian drama, and 
 that it is, according to Matthew Arnold, " through 
 the original poetry of Milton ", that those who do 
 not know Greek are "to gain any sense of the 
 power and charm of the great poets of antiquity " 
 for Milton alone has the " like power to charm 
 because he has the like great style". 
 
 The poetry of Milton is difficult because it is 
 so severe and stately, but it is well worth the 
 trouble it demands of us. The power to read 
 Milton will be a source of never-ending pleasure 
 it will also be a touchstone by which other poetry 
 may be tested, for you may be sure that after 
 you have learned to love and appreciate Milton, 
 you will never afterwards be able to tolerate any- 
 thing common or unclean. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 V ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY . . .13 
 
 L J ALLEGRO 24 
 
 IL PENSEROSO 29 
 
 , COMUS . 35 
 
 X 
 LYCIDAS 70 
 
 ENGLISH SONNETS 77 
 
 SAMSON AGONISTES ...*.., 88 
 
ON THE MORNING 
 OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY 
 
 This is the month, and this the happy morn, 
 Wherein the Son of Heaven's Eternal King, 
 Of wedded Maid and Virgin Mother born, 
 Our great redemption from above did bring; 
 For so the holy sages once did sing, 
 
 That he our deadly forfeit should release, 
 And with his Father work us a perpetual peace. 
 
 That glorious form, that light unsufferable, 
 And that far-beaming blaze of majesty, 
 Wherewith he wont, at Heaven's high council-table 
 To sit the midst of Trinal Unity, n 
 
 He laid aside; and, here with us to be, 
 Forsook the courts of everlasting day, 
 And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay. 
 
 3 
 
 Say, Heavenly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein 15 
 Afford a present to the Infant-God? 
 Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain, 
 To welcome him to this his new abode, 
 
 13 
 
14 ON THE MORNING 
 
 Now while the Heaven, by the sun's team untrod, 
 
 Hath took no print of the approaching light, 20 
 
 And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons bright? 
 
 4 
 
 See how from far upon the eastern road 
 The star-led wizards haste with odours sweet! 
 O run, prevent them with thy humble ode, 
 And lay it lowly at his blessed feet; 26 
 
 Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet, 
 And join thy voice unto the Angel Quire; 
 From out his secret altar touched with hallow'd fire, 
 

 OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY"' 15 
 
 THE HYMN 
 
 7\ It was the winter wild, 
 
 While the Heav'n-born child, sr 
 
 All meanly wrapt, in the rude manger lies; 
 Nature, in awe to him, 
 Had doff 'd her gaudy trim, 
 With her great Master so to sympathise: 
 it was no season then for her *t 
 
 To wanton with the Sun, her lusty paramour. 
 
 Only with speeches fair 
 She woos the gentle Air, 
 To hide her guilty front with innocent snow; 
 And on her naked shame, 
 Pollute with sinful blame, 
 The saintly veil of maiden white to throw; 
 Confounded, that her Maker's eyes 
 Should look so near upon her foul deformities. 
 
 3 
 
 But he, her fears to cease, 
 Sent down the meek-eyed Peace; 
 She, crown'd with olive green, came softly sliding 
 Down through the turning sphere, 
 His ready harbinger, 
 
l6 ON THE MORNING 
 
 With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing; 50 
 
 And, waving wide her myrtle wand, 
 She strikes a universal peace through sea and land 
 
 4 
 
 No war, or battle's sound, 
 Was heard the world around; 
 
 The idle spear and shield were high uphung; 55 
 
 The hooked chariot stood, 
 Unstain'd with hostile blood, 
 The trumpet spake not to the armed throng; 
 And kings sat still, with awful eye, 
 As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by. 60 
 
 y 5 
 
 But peaceful was the night, 
 Wherein the Prince of Light 
 His reign of peace upon the earth began: 
 The winds, with wonder whist, 
 Smoothly the waters kiss'd, 65 
 
 Whispering new joys to the mild Ocean ; 
 Who now hath quite forgot to rave, 
 While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave. 
 
 6 y 
 
 The stars, with deep amaze, 
 
 Stand fix'd in stedfast gaze, 70 
 
 Bending one way their precious influence; 
 And will not take their flight, 
 For all the morning light, 
 Or Lucifer that often warned them thence; 
 But in their glimmering orbs did glow, 75 
 
 Until their Lord himself bespake, and bid them go. 
 
 (C134) 
 
OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY 17 
 
 7 
 
 And, though the shady gloom 
 Had given day her room, 
 The Sun himself withheld his wonted speed 
 
 And hid his head for shame, BO 
 
 As his inferior flame 
 
 The new enlightened world no more should need : 
 He saw a greater Sun appear 
 Than his bright throne or burning axle-tree could bear. 
 
 8 
 
 The shepherds on the lawn, % 
 
 Or ere the point of dawn, 
 Sat simply chatting in a rustic row; 
 Full little thought they than 
 That the mighty Pan 
 
 Was kindly come to live with them below: 90 
 
 Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep, 
 Was all that did their silly thoughts so busy keep. 
 
 9 
 
 When such music sweet 
 Their hearts and ears did greet, 
 
 As never was by mortal finger strook, 95 
 
 Divinely warbled voice 
 Answering the stringed noise, 
 As all their souls in blissful rapture tooks 
 The air, such pleasure loth to lose, 
 With thousand echoes still prolongs each heavenly 
 close. 100 
 
 CC134) 2 
 
ON THE MORNIN- 
 
 IO 
 
 
 Nature, that heard such sound 
 Beneath the hollow round 
 Of Cynthia's seat, the aery region thrilling, 
 Now was almost won 
 
 To think her part was done, 105 
 
 And that her reign had here its last fulfilling: 
 She knew such harmony alone 
 Could hold all Heaven and Earth in happier union. 
 
 ii 
 
 At last surrounds their sight 
 
 A globe of circular light, no 
 
 That with long beams the shamefaced Night array'd; 
 The helmed cherubim, 
 And sworded seraphim, 
 
 Are seen in glittering ranks with wings displayed, 
 Harping in loud and solemn quire, 115 
 
 With unexpressive notes, to Heaven's new-born Heir. 
 
 12 
 
 Such music, as 't is said, 
 Before was never made, 
 But when of old the sons of morning sung; 
 
 While the Creator great 120 
 
 His constellations set, 
 
 And the well-balanced World on hinges hung; 
 And cast the dark foundations deep, 
 . And bid the weltering waves their oozy channel keep. 
 
OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY 
 
 13 
 
 Ring out, ye crystal spheres ! 
 Once bless our human ears, 
 If ye have power to touch our senses so; 
 And let your silver chime 
 Move in melodious time, 
 And let the bass of Heaven's deep organ blow; 
 And, with your nine-fold harmony, 
 Make up full consort to the angelic symphony. 
 
 14 
 
 For if such holy song 
 Enwrap our fancy long, 
 
 Time will run back, and fetch the Age of Gold; ^35 
 And speckled Vanity 
 Will sicken soon and die, 
 And leprous Sin will melt from earthly mould, 
 And Hell itself will pass away, 
 And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day. MO 
 
 Yea, Truth and Justice then 
 Will down return to men, 
 Orb'd in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing, 
 Mercy will sit between, 
 
 Throned in celestial ;,heen, 146 
 
 With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering, 
 And Heaven, as at some festival, 
 Will open wide the gates of her high palace hall. 
 
20 ON THE MORNING 
 
 16 
 
 But wisest Fate says no, 
 
 This must not yet be so; 150 
 
 The Babe lies yet in smiling infancy, 
 That on the bitter cross 
 Must redeem our loss; 
 So both himself and us to glorify: 
 
 Yet first to those ychain'd in sleep 155 
 
 The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the 
 deep, 
 
 17 
 
 With such a horrid clang 
 As on Mount Sinai rang, 
 
 While the red fire and smouldering clouds out brake-. 
 The aged Earth, aghast 160 
 
 With terror of the blast, 
 Shall from the surface to the centre shake; 
 When, at the world's last sessi6n, 
 The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread his throne. 
 
 N 
 
 18 
 
 And then at last our bliss 105 
 
 Full and perfect is, 
 
 But now begins; for, from this happy day, 
 The old Dragon under ground, 
 In straiter limits bound, 
 
 Not half so far casts his usurped sway; no 
 
 And, wroth to see his kingdom fail, 
 Swindges the scaly horror of his folded tail. 
 
OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY 
 
 19 
 
 The Oracles are dumb; 
 No voice or hideous hum 
 
 Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving. 175 
 Apollo from his shrine 
 Can no more divine, 
 
 With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving. 
 No nightly trance, or breathed spell, 
 Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell, iso 
 
 20 
 
 The lonely mountains o'er, 
 And the resounding shore, 
 A voice of weeping heard, and loud lament; 
 From haunted spring, and dale 
 Edged with poplar pale, 185 
 
 The parting Genius is with sighing sent; 
 With flower-inwoven tresses torn, 
 The Nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn. 
 
 21 
 
 In consecrated earth, 
 And on the hply hearth, 
 
 The Lars Imd Lemures'moan with midnight plaint; 
 In urns and altars round, 
 A drear and dying sound 
 Affrights the Flamens at their service quaint; 
 And the chill marble seems to sweat, 
 While each peculiar Power forgoes his wonted seat. 
 
22 ON THE MORNING 
 
 Ji ><^ 22 
 
 Peor and Baalim < (? h (TCIO* 
 Forsake their temples dim, 
 With that twice-batter'd God of Palestine 
 
 And mooned Ashtarotl), 
 
 Heaven's queen and mother both, 
 Now sits not girt with tapers/ holy shine; 
 The Libyc Hammon shrinks his horn ; 
 In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz mourn. 
 
 {0 ^ -i ~-~-, --_., e**A<J^ ***** 
 
 And sullen Moloch, fled, 205 
 
 Hath left in shadows dread 
 His burning idol all of blackest hue; 
 In vain with cymbals' ring 
 They call the grisly king, 
 
 In dismal dance about the furnace blue: 210 
 
 The brutish gods , of Nile as fast, 
 Isis, and Orus, and the dog Anubis hastq. I i / 
 
 Nor is 
 
 In Memphian grove or green, 
 
 Trampling the unshower'd grass with lowings loud; 215 
 Nor can he be at rest 
 Within his sacred chest; 
 
 Naught but profoundest Hell can be his shroud; 
 In vain with timbrelPd anthems dark, 
 The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipt ark. 220 
 
OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY 23 
 
 25 
 
 He feels, from Juda's land, 
 The dreaded Infant's hand; 
 The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn; 
 Nor all the gods beside 
 Longer dare abide, x^ ,jJ"J Jt Gb> 
 
 Not Typhon huge, ending in snaky twine: 
 Our Babe, to show his Godhead true, 
 Can in his swaddling bands control the damned crew. 
 
 26 
 
 \/ 
 
 So, when the Sun in bed, 
 
 Curtain'd with cloudy red, 280 
 
 Pillows his chin upon an orient wave^ 
 The flocking shadows pale, 
 Troop to the infernal jail; 
 Each fetter'd ghost slips to his several grave, 
 And the yellow-skirted Fays 235 
 
 Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-loved maze. -4 
 
 v 27 
 
 But see! the Virgin blest 
 Hath laid her Babe to rest; 
 
 Time is our tedious song should here have ending; 
 Heaven's youngest-teemed star 2*0 
 
 Hath fix'd her polish'd car, 
 
 Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending; 
 And all about the courtly stable 
 Bright-harness'd Angels sit, in order serviceable. 
 
L'ALLEGRO 
 
 /\ HENCE, loathed Melancholy, 
 
 Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born, 
 In Stygian cave forlorn, 
 
 'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy \ 
 Find out some uncouth cell, 5 
 
 Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings, 
 And the night-raven sings : 
 
 There, under ebon shades, and low-brow'd rocks, 
 As ragged as thy locks, 
 
 In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell. 10 
 
 V 
 
 But come, thou goddess fair and free, 
 In Heaven yclep'd Euphrosyne, 4rv-Cjer{0*4^(jrT*. 
 
 And by men, heart-easing Mirth; 
 
 Whom lovely Venus, at a birth, 
 
 With two sister Graces more, 15 
 
 To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore: 
 
 Or whether, as some sager sing, 
 
 The frolick wind, that breathes the spring, 
 
 Zephyr, with Aurora playing, 
 
 As he met her once a-Maying; 20 
 
 There on beds of violet blue, 
 
 And fresh-blown roses wash'd in dew, 
 
 Fill'd her with thee a daughter fair, 
 
 So buxom, blithe, and debonair. 
 
 Haste thee, nymph, and bring with thee 25 
 Jest, and youthful jollity, 
 Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles, 
 Nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles, 
 
 24 
 
L ALLEGRO. 
 
 Such as hang on Hebe's cheek, 
 
 And love to live in dimple sleek; 30 
 
 Sport that wrinkled Care derides, 
 
 And Laughter holding both his sides. 
 
 Come, and trip it, as you go, 
 
 On the light fantastic toe; 
 
 And in thy right hand lead with thee 35 
 
 The mountain-nymph, sweet Liberty; 
 
 And, if I give thee honour due, 
 
 Mirth, admit me of thy crew, 
 
 To live with her, and live with thee, 
 
 In unreproved pleasures free; v + 40 
 
 The Pleasures of a Morning in the Country, 
 
 To hear the lark begin his flight, 
 
 And singing, startle the dull night, 
 
 From his watch-tower in the skies, 
 
 Till the dappled dawn doth rise; 
 
 Then to come, in spite of sorrow, 45 
 
 And at my window bid good morrow, 
 
 Through the sweet-briar, or the vine, 
 
 Or the twisted eglantine : 
 
 While the cock, with lively din, 
 
 Scatters the rear of darkness thin; 50 
 
 And to the stack, or the barn-door, 
 
 Stoutly struts his dames before : 
 
 Oft listening how the hounds and horn 
 
 Cheerly rouse the slumb'ring morn, 
 
 From the side of some hoar hill, 55 
 
 Through the high wood echoing shrill: 
 
 Some time walking, not unseen, 
 
 By hedge-row elms, on hillocks green, 
 
 Right against the eastern gate, 
 
26 L'ALLEGRO. 
 
 Where the great sun begins his state, 60 
 
 Robed in flames, and amber light, 
 
 The clouds in thousand liveries dight; 
 
 While the plowman, near at hand, 
 
 Whistles o'er the furrow'd land, 
 
 And the milkmaid singeth blithe, 65 
 
 And the mowfer whets his sithe, 
 
 And every shepherd tells his tale 
 
 Under the hawthorn in the dale. , 
 
 >f* 
 
 Country Life and Scenery. 
 
 Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures, 
 Whilst the landskip round it measures; 70 
 
 Russet lawns, and fallows gray, 
 Where the nibbling flocks do stray: 
 Mountains, on whose barren breast 
 The laboring clouds do often rest; 
 Meadows trim with daisies pied, 75 
 
 Shallow brooks, and rivers wide: 
 Towers and battlements it sees 
 Bosom'd high in tufted trees, 
 Where perjiaps some beauty lies, 
 The Cyhosure^of neighbouring eyes. 80 
 
 Hard by, a cottage chimney smoaks 
 From betwixt two aged oaks, 
 Where Corydon and Thyrsis, met, 
 Are at their savoury dinner set 
 Of herbs, and other country messes, 85 
 
 Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses ; 
 And then in haste her bower she leaves, 
 With Thestylis to bind the sheaves; 
 Or, if the earlier season lead, 
 To the tann'd haycock in the mead 90 
 
L'ALLEGRO. 37 
 
 The Villagt Festival. 
 
 Sometimes with secure delight 
 
 The upland hamlets will invite, 
 
 When the merry bells ring round, 
 
 And the jocund rebecks sound 
 
 To many a youth, and many a maid. 95 
 
 Dancing in the chequer'd shade; 
 
 And young and old come forth to play 
 
 On a sunshine holyday, 
 
 Till the livelong daylight fail: 
 
 Then to the spicy nut-brown ale, 100 
 
 With stories told of many a feat, 
 
 How faery Mab the junkets ate : 
 
 She was pinch'd and pull'd, she sed; 
 
 And he, by friar's lantern led, 
 
 Tells how the drudging goblin swet, 105 
 
 To earn his cream-bowl duly set, 
 
 When in one night, ere glimpse of morn, 
 
 His shadowy flail hath thresh'd the corn, 
 
 That ten day-labourers could not end : 
 
 Then lies him down the lubbar fiend, no 
 
 And, stretch'd out all the chimney's length, 
 
 Basks at the fire his hairy strength; 
 
 And crop-full out of doors he flings, 
 
 Ere the first cock his matin rings. 
 
 Thus done the tales, to bed they creep, 115 
 
 By whispering winds soon lulPd asleep. 
 
 The Pleasures of the Town the Tournament, the Masque, the Stage. 
 Tower'd cities please us then, 
 And the busy hum of men, 
 Where throngs of knights and barons bold, 
 In weeds of peace, high triumphs hold, zao 
 
 With store of ladies, whose bright eyes 
 
28 L'ALLEGRO. 
 
 Rain influence, and judge the prize 
 
 Of wit or arms, while both contend 
 
 To win her grace, whom all commend. 
 
 There let Hymen oft appear <J <*i " 12 $ 
 
 In saffron robe, with taper clear, ' ^&*9 3*fe<_ 
 
 And pomp, and feast, and revelry, 
 
 With mask, and antique pageantry; 
 
 Such sights as youthful poets dream 
 
 On summer eves by haunted stream. 130 
 
 Then to the well-trod stage anon, 
 
 If Jonson's learned sock be on; 
 
 Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child, 
 
 Warble his native wood-notes wild. 
 
 \ 
 The Pleasures of Music. 
 
 And ever, against eating cares, 135 
 
 Lap me in soft Lydian airs, 
 Married to immortal verse; 
 Such as the meeting soul may pierce, 
 In notes, with many a winding bout 
 , Of linked sweetness long drawn out, 140 
 
 With wanton heed and giddy cunning; 
 The melting voice through mazes running, 
 Untwisting all the chains that tie 
 The hidden soul of harmony; 
 
 That Orpheus' self may heave his head 145 
 
 From golden slumber on a bed 
 Of heap'd Elysian flowers, and hear 
 Such strains, as would have won the ear 
 Of Pluto, to have quite set free 
 His half-regained Eurydice. 150 
 
 These delights if thou canst give, 
 Mirth, with thee I mean to live. 
 
IL PENSEROSO 
 
 Let vain and foolish joys begone. 
 \/ 
 
 HENCE, vain deluding Joys, 
 
 The brood of Folly without father bred ! 
 
 How little you bested, 
 Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys ! 
 Dwell in some idle brain, 5 
 
 And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess, 
 
 As thick and numberless 
 
 As the gay motes that people the sun-beams; 
 
 Or likest hovering dreams, 
 The fickle pensioners of Morpheus' train. 10 
 
 Invocation to, and Parentage of, the Goddess Melancholy. 
 
 But hail, thou goddess, sage and holy, 
 
 Hail, divinest Melancholy! 
 
 Whose saintly visage is too bright 
 
 To hit the sense of human sight, 
 
 And therefore to our weaker view 15 
 
 O'erlaid with black, staid Wisdom's hue; 
 
 Black, but such as in esteem 
 
 Prince Memnon's sister might beseem, 
 
 Or that starr'd Ethiop queen that strove 
 
 To set her beauty's praise above 20 
 
 The sea-nymphs', and their powers offended: 
 
 Yet thou art higher far descended: 
 
 Thee bright-hair'd Vesta, long of yore, 
 
 To solitary Saturn bore; 
 
 His daughter she; in Saturn's reign, 25 
 
 29 
 
30 IL PENSEROSO. 
 
 Such mixture was not held a stain : 
 
 Oft in glimmering bowers and glades 
 
 He met her, and in secret shades 
 
 Of woody Ida's inmost grove, 
 
 Whilst yet there was no fear of Jove. 30 
 
 Her appearance, dress, and companions Peace, Quiet, Abstinence, 
 Leisure, Contemplation, and Silence. 
 
 Come, pensive Nun, devout and pure, 
 Sober, stedfast, and demure, 
 All in a robe of darkest grain, 
 Flowing with majestick train, 
 
 And sable stole of cypress lawn, 35 
 
 Over thy decent shoulders drawn. 
 * Come, but keep thy wonted state, 
 With even step, and musing gait; 
 And looks commercing with the skies, 
 Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes : 40 
 
 There, held in holy passion still, 
 Forget thyself to marble, till 
 With a sad leaden downward cast 
 Thou fix them on the earth as fast: 
 And join with thee calm Peace, and Quiet 45 
 
 Spare Fast, that oft with gods doth diet, 
 And hears the Muses in a ring 
 Aye round about Jove's altar sing. 
 And add to these retired Leisure, 
 That in trim gardens takes his pleasure: 50 
 
 But first and chiefest with thee bring, 
 Him that yon soars on golden wing, 
 Guiding the fiery-wheeled throne, 
 The cherub Contemplation; 
 And the mute Silence hist along, 55 
 
IL PENSEROSO. 31 
 
 The Nightingale. 
 
 'Less Philomel will deign a song, 
 
 In her sweetest, saddest plight, 
 
 Smoothing the rugged brow of night, 
 
 While Cynthia checks her dragon yoke, 
 
 Gently o'er the accustom'd oak : 60 
 
 Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly, 
 
 Most musical, most melancholy! 
 
 Thee, chauntress, oft, the words among, 
 
 I woo, to hear thy even-song; 
 
 The meditative walk by moonlight^ or quiet thought by the fireside. 
 
 And, missing thee, I walk unseen 65 
 
 On the dry smooth-shaven green, 
 To behold the wandering moon 
 Riding near her highest noon, 
 Like one that had been led astray 
 Through the heaven's wide pathless way; 70 
 
 And oft, as if her head she bow'd, 
 Stooping through a fleecy cloud. 
 Oft, on a plat of rising ground, 
 L hear the far-off curfew sound, 
 Over some wide-water'd shore, 75 
 
 Swinging slow with sullen roar: 
 Or, if the air will not permit, 
 Some still removed place will fit, 
 Where glowing embers through the room 
 Teach light to counterfeit a gloom ; 80 
 
 Far from all resort of mirth, 
 Save the cricket on the hearth, 
 Or the bellman's drowsy charm, 
 To bless the doors from nightly harm. 
 
32 IL PENSEROSO. 
 
 Midnight study of Philosophy and Tragedy. 
 
 Or let my lamp at midnight hour, 85 
 
 Be seen in some high lonely tower, 
 
 Where I may oft out watch the Bear, 
 
 With thrice-great Hermes, or unsphere 
 
 The spirit of Plato, to unfold 
 
 What worlds or what vast regions hold 90 
 
 The immortal mind that hath forsook 
 
 Her mansion in this fleshy nook : 
 
 And of those demons that are found 
 
 In fire, air, flood, or under ground, 
 
 Whose power hath a true consent 95 
 
 With planet, or with element. 
 
 Sometimes let gorgeous Tragedy 
 
 In sceptred pall come sweeping by, 
 
 Presenting Thebes, or Pelops' line, 
 
 Or the tale of Troy divine; 100 
 
 Or what, though rare, of later age 
 
 Ennobled hath the buskin'd stage. 
 
 The poetry of Musaus, Orpheus, Chaucer, and other great bards. 
 
 But, O sad Virgin, that thy power 
 Might raise Musaeus from his bower! 
 Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing 105 
 
 Such notes, as, warbled to the string, 
 Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek, 
 And made Hell grant what love did seekl 
 N Or call up him that left half-told A 
 -> The story of Cambuscan bold, no 
 
 Of Camball and of Algarsife, 
 And who had Canace to wife, 
 That own'd the virtuous ring and glass; 
 And of the wondrous horse of brass, 
 On which the Tartar king did ride: ^/ 115 
 
IL PENSEROSO. 33 
 
 And if aught else great bards beside 
 
 In sage and solemn tunes have sung, 
 
 Of turneys, and of trophies hung; 
 
 Of forests and enchantments drear, 
 
 Where more is meant than meets the ear. 120 
 
 The morning solitary walk. 
 
 Thus, Night, oft see me in thy pale career 
 Till civil-suited Morn appear, 
 Not trick'd and frounced as she was wont 
 With the Attic boy to hunt, Gph J^i 
 But kerchieft in a comely cloud, 125 
 
 While rocking winds are piping loud, 
 Or usher'd with a shower still, 
 When the gust hath blown his fill, 
 Ending on the rustling leaves, 
 
 With minute drops from off the eaves.) 530 
 
 And, when the sun begins to fling 
 His flaring beams, me, Goddess, bring 
 To arched walks of twilight groves, 
 And shadows brown, that Sylvan loves, 
 Of pine, or monumental oak, 135 
 
 Where the rude axe, with heaved stroke, 
 Was never heard the nymphs to daunt, 
 Or fright them from their hallow'd haunt. 
 There in close covert by some brook, 
 Where no profaner eye may look, 140 
 
 Hide me from day's garish eye, 
 
 Sleep by some stream and the visions of dreams. 
 
 While the bee with honied thigh, 
 
 That at her flowery work doth sing, 
 
 And the waters murmuring, 
 
 With such consort as they keep, 145 
 
 (0134) o 
 
IL PENSEROSO. 
 
 Entice the dewy-feather'd sleep; 
 
 And let some strange mysterious Dream 
 
 Wave at his wings in aery stream 
 
 Of lively portraiture display'd, 
 
 Softly on my eyelids laid: 150 
 
 And, as I wake, sweet music breathe 
 
 Above, about, or underneath, 
 
 Sent by some Spirit to mortals good. yS 
 
 Or the unseen Genius of the wood. 
 
 Devotions in some dimly-lit, sacred building, with solemn music. 
 
 But let my due feet never fail 155 
 
 To walk the studious cloisters pale, 
 And love the high-embowed roof, 
 With antic pillars massy proof, 
 And storied windows richly dight, 
 Casting a dim religious light: 160 
 
 There let the pealing organ blow, 
 To the full-voiced quire below, 
 In service high, and anthems clear, 
 As may with sweetness, through mine ear, 
 Dissolve me into ecstasies, 165 
 
 And bring all heaven before mine eyes. 
 
 The closing years of the contemplative man. 
 
 And may at last my weary age 
 Find out the peaceful hermitage, 
 The hairy gown and mossy cell, 
 Where I may sit and rightly spell 170 
 
 Of every star that heaven doth shew, 
 And every herb that sips the dew; 
 Till old experience do attain 
 To something like prophetic strain. 
 
 These pleasures, Melancholy, give. .175 
 
 And I with thee will choose to live. 
 
COMUS 
 
 The first Scene discovers a wild wood. 
 The ATTENDANT SPIRIT descends or enters. 
 
 Before the starry threshold of Jove's coiirt 
 My mansion is, where those immortal shapes 
 Of bright aerial spirits live insphered 
 In regions mild of calm and serene air, 
 .bove the smoke and stir of this dim spot 5 
 
 'hich men call Earth), and, with low-thoughted care, 
 Confined and pestered in this pinfold here, 
 Strive to keep up a frail and feverish being, 
 Unmindful of the crown that Virtue gives, 
 After this mortal change, to her true servants 10 
 
 Amongst the enthroned gods on sainted seats. 
 Yet some there be that by due steps aspire 
 To lay their just hands on that golden key 
 That opes the palace of eternity. 
 
 To such my errand is; and, but for such, 15 
 
 I would not soil these pure ambrosial weeds 
 With the rank vapours of this sin-worn mould. 
 But to my task. Neptune, besides the sway 
 Of every salt flood and each ebbing stream, 
 Took in, by lot 'twixt high and nether Jove, 20 
 
 Imperial rule of all the sea-girt isles 
 
 86 
 
36 COMUS 
 
 That, like to rich and various gems, inlay 
 
 The unadorned bosom of the deep; 
 
 Which he, to grace his tributary gods, 
 
 By course commits to several government, 
 
 And gives them leave to wear their sapphire crowns 
 
 And wield their little tridents. But this Isle, 
 
 The greatest and the best of all the main, 
 
 He quarters to his blue-haired deities; 
 
 And all this tract that fronts the falling sun 30 
 
 A noble Peer of mickle trust and power 
 
 Has in his charge, with tempered awe to guide 
 
 An old and haughty nation, proud in arms : 
 
 Where his fair offspring, nursed in princely lore, 
 
 Are coming to attend their father's state, 35 
 
 And new-intrusted sceptre. But their way 
 
 Lies through the perplexed paths of this drear wood- 
 
 The nodding horror of whose shady brows 
 
 Threats the forlorn and wandering passenger; ; 
 
 And here their tender age might suffer peril^ 4C 
 
 But that, by quick command from sovran Jove, 
 
 I was despatched for their defence and guard ! 
 
 And listen why; for I will tell you now 
 
 What never yet was heard in tale or song, 
 
 From old or modern bard, in hall or bower. 45 
 
 Bacchus, that first from out the purple grape 
 Crushed the sweet poison of misused wine, 
 After the Tuscan mariners transformed, 
 Coasting the* Tyrrhene shore, as the winds listed, 
 On Circe's island fell. (Who knows not Circe, so 
 
 The daughter of the Sun, whose charmed cup 
 Whoever tasted lost his upright shape, 
 And downward fell into a grovelling swine?) 
 
COMUS 37 
 
 This Nymph, that gazed upon his clustering locks, 
 With ivy berries wreathed, and his blithe youth, 55 
 
 Had by him, ere he parted thence, a son _. 
 < \Much like his father, but his mother more, 
 
 Whom therefore she brought up, and Comus named: 
 Who, ripe and frolic of his full-grown age, 
 Roving the Celtic and Iberian fields, eo 
 
 At last betakes him to this ominous wood, 
 And, in thick shelter of black shades imbowered, 
 Excels his mother at her mighty art; 
 Offering to every weary traveller 
 
 His orient liquor in a crystal glass, 65 
 
 To quench the drouth of Phoebus; which as they taste 
 (For most do taste through fond intemperate thirst), 
 Soon as the potion works, their human count'nance, 
 The express resemblance of the gods, is changed 
 Into some brutish form of wolf or bear, 70 
 
 Or ounce or tiger, hog, or bearded goat, 
 All other parts remaining as they were. 
 And they, so perfect is their misery, 
 Not once perceive their foul disfigurement, 
 But boast themselves more comely than before, 75 
 
 And all their friends and native home forget, 
 To roll with pleasure in a sensual sty. 
 Therefore, when any favoured of high Jove 
 Chances to pass through this adventurous glade, 
 ' Swift as the sparkle of a glancing star so 
 
 I shoot from heaven, to give him safe convoy, 
 As now I do. . But first I must put off 
 These my sky-robes, spun out of Iris' woof, roiWl 
 And take the weeds 'and likeness of a swain 
 That to the service of this house belongs, 8fi 
 
A * 
 
 38 COMUS 
 
 Who, with his soft pipe and smooth-dittied song, 
 
 Well knows to still the wild winds when they roar, 
 
 And hush the waving woods ; nor of less faith, 
 
 And in this office of his mountain watch 
 
 Likeliest, and nearest to the present aid 90 
 
 Of this occasion. But I hear the tread 
 
 Of hateful steps ; I must be viewless now. 
 
 COMUS enters, with a charming-rod in one hand, his glass in the 
 other; with him a rout of monsters, headed like sundry sorts of 
 wild beasts, but otherwise like men and women, their apparel 
 glistering. They come in making a riotous and unruly noise, 
 with torches in their hands. 
 
 Comus. The star that bids the shepherd fold 
 Now the top of heaven doth hold; 
 And the gilded car of day 95 
 
 His glowing axle doth allay 
 In the steep Atlantic stream: 
 And the slope sun his upward beam 
 Shoots against the dusky pole, 
 
 Pacing toward the other goal 100 
 
 Of his chamber in the east. 
 Meanwhile, welcome joy and feast, 
 Midnight shout and revelry, 
 Tipsy dance and jollity. 
 
 Braid your locks with rosy twine, Jfl* 
 
 Dropping odours, dropping wine. 
 Rigour now is gone to bed; 
 And Advice with scrupulous head, 
 Strict Age, and sour Severity, 
 
 With their grave saws, in slumber lie. iio 
 
 We, that are of purer fire, 
 Imitate the starry quire, 
 
COMUS 39 
 
 Who, in their nightly watchful spheres, 
 Lead in swift round the months and years. 
 The sounds and seas, with all their finny drove, us 
 
 Now to the moon in wavering morrice move; 
 And on the tawny sands and shelves _ 
 
 Trip the pert faeries and the dapper elves. 
 By dimpled brook and fountain-brim, 
 The wood-nymphs, decked with daisies trim, 120 
 
 Their merry wakes and pastimes keep: 
 What hath night to do with sleep? 
 Night hath better sweets to prove; ^NX^. ^ 
 Venus now wakes, and wakens Love^ 
 Come, let us our rites begin; 12$ 
 
 T is only daylight that makes sin, 
 Which these dun shades will ne'er report 
 Hail, goddess of nocturnal sport, ^ U/trrsm'M 1 * 
 Dark-veiled Cotytto, to whom the secret flame 
 Of midnight torches burns ! mysterious dame, 130 
 
 That ne'er art called but when the dragon womb 
 Of Stygian darkness spets her thickest gloom, 
 And makes one blot of all the air! 
 Stay thy cludy ebon chair, 
 
 Wherein thou ridest with Hecat', and befriend 135 
 
 Us thy vowed priests, till utmost end 
 Of all thy dues be done, and none left out 
 Ere the blabbing eastern scout,) fn4*m**uj 
 The nice Morn on the Indian steep, 
 From her cabined loop-hole peep, wo 
 
 And to the tell-tale Sun descry 
 Our concealed solemnity-- 
 -/tjome, knit hands, and beat the ground 
 In a light fantastic round. 
 
40 COMUS 
 
 The Measure. 
 
 Break off, break off! I feel the different pace 145 
 
 Of some chaste footing near about this ground. 
 
 Run to your shrouds within these brakes and trees ; 
 
 Our number may affright. Some virgin sure 
 
 (For so I can distinguish by mine art) 
 
 Benighted in these woods ! Now to my charms, 150 
 
 And to my wily trains: I shall ere long 
 
 Be well stocked with as fair a herd as grazed 
 
 About my mother Circe. Thus I hurl 
 
 My dazzling spells into the spongy air, 
 
 Of power to cheat the eye with blear illusion, 155 
 
 And give it false presentments, lest the place 
 
 And my quaint habits breed astonishment, 
 
 And put the damsel to suspicious flight; 
 
 Which must not be, for that 7 s against my course. 
 
 I, under fair pretence of friendly eiyis, ^ 
 
 And well-placed words of glozing courtes^ 
 
 Baited with reasons not unplausible, 
 
 Wind me into the easy-hearted man, 
 
 And hug him into snares. When once her eye 
 
 Hath met the virtue of this magic dust 165 
 
 I shall appear some harmless villager, 
 
 Whom thrift keeps up about his country gear. 
 
 But here she comes; I fairly step aside, 
 
 And hearken, if I may her business hear. 
 
 The LADY enters. 
 
 Lady. This way the noise was, if mine ear be true, i?o 
 My best guide now. Methought it was the sound 
 Of riot and ill-managed merriment, 
 
COMUS 41 
 
 Such as the jocund flute or gamesome pipe 
 
 Stirs up among the loose unlettered hinds, Gaw*vl> 
 
 When, for their teeming flocks and granges full, m 
 
 In wanton dance they praise the bounteous Pan, 
 
 And thank the gods amiss. I should be loth 
 
 To meet the rudeness and swilled insolence 
 
 Of such late wassailers ; yet, oh ! where else 
 
 Shall I inform my unacquainted feet iso 
 
 In the blind mazes of this tangled wood? 
 
 My brothers, when they saw me wearied out 
 
 With this long way, resolving here to lodge 
 
 Under the spreading favour of these pines, 
 
 Stepped, as they said, to the next thicket-side iss 
 
 To bring me berries, or such cooling fruit 
 
 the kind hospitable woods provide, 
 'hey left me then when the grey-hooded Even, 
 Like a sad votarist in palmer's weed, 
 Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus' wain. \f ld 
 But where they are, and why they came not back, 
 Is now the labour of my thoughts. 'T is likeliest 
 They had engaged their wandering steps too far; 
 And envious darkness, ere they could return, 
 Had stole them from me. Else, O thievish Night, 195 
 Why shouldst thou, but for some felonious end, 
 In thy dark lantern thus close up the stars 
 That Nature hung in heaven, and filled their lamps 
 With everlasting oil, to give due light 
 To the misled and lonely traveller? 200 
 
 This is the place, as well as I may guess, 
 Whence even now the tumult of loud mirth 
 Was rife, and perfect in my listening ear; 
 Yet nought but single darkness do I find. 
 
42 COMUS 
 
 What might this be? A thousand fantasies 205 
 
 Begin to throng into my memory, 
 
 Of calling shapes, and beckoning shadows dire, 
 
 And airy tongues that syllable men's names 
 
 On sands and shores and desert wildernesses. 
 
 These thoughts may startle well, but not astound 210 
 
 The virtuous mind, that ever walks attended 
 
 By a strong siding champion, Conscience. 
 
 O, welcome, pure-eyed Faith, white-handed Hope, 
 
 Thou hovering angel girt with golden wings, 
 
 And thou unblemished form of Chastity ! 215 
 
 I see ye visibly, and now believe 
 
 That He, the Supreme Good, to whom all things ill 
 
 Are but as slavish officers of vengeance, 
 
 Would send a glistering guardian, if need were, 
 
 To keep my life and honour unassailed. ... 220 
 
 Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud 
 
 Turn forth her silver lining on the night? 
 
 I did not err: there does a sable cloud 
 
 Turn forth her silver lining on the night, 
 
 And casts a gleam over this tufted grove. 225 
 
 I cannot hallo to my brothers, but 
 
 Such noise as I can make to be heard farthest 
 
 I '11 venture; for my new-enlivened spirits 
 
 Prompt me, and they perhaps are not far off. 
 
 \ ^^ Song. 
 
 Sweet Echo, sweetest nymph, that liv'st unseen 230 
 
 Within thy airy shell 
 By slow Meander's margent green, 
 And in the violet-embroidered vale 
 Where the love-lorn nightingale 
 
COMUS 43 
 
 Nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well: 5 
 
 Canst thou not tell me of a gentle pair 
 That likest thy Narcissus are? 
 
 O, if thou have 
 Hid them in some flowery cave, 
 
 Tell me but where, 240 
 
 Sweet Queen of Parley, Daughter of the sphere ! 
 So may'st thou be translated to the skies, 
 And give resounding grace to all heaven's harmonies ! \^ 
 
 Comus. Can any mortal mixture of earth's mould 
 Breathe such divine enchanting ravishment ? 245 
 
 Sure something holy lodges in that breast, 
 And with these raptures moves the vocal air 
 To testify his hidden residence. 
 How sweetly did they float upon the wings 
 Of silence, through the empty- vaulted night, 250 
 
 At every fall smoothing the raven down 
 Of darkness till it smiled ! I have oft heard 
 My mother Circe with the Sirens three, 
 Amidst the flowery-kirtled Naiades, 
 Culling their potent herbs and baleful drugs, 255 
 
 Who, as they sung, would take the prisoned soul, 
 And lap it in Elysium : Scylla wept, r\3X < 
 And chid her barking waves into attention, 
 And fell Charybdis murmured soft applause. 
 Yet they in pleasing slumber lulled the sense, 2o 
 
 And in sweet madness robbed it of itself; 
 But such a sacred and home-felt delight, 
 Such sober certainty of waking bliss, 
 I never heard till now. I '11 speak to her, 
 And she shall be my queen. Hail, foreign wonder! 205 
 
44 COMUS 
 
 Whom certain these rough shades did never breed, 
 
 Unless the goddess that in rural shrine 
 
 Dwell'st here with Pan or Sylvan, by blest song 
 
 Forbidding every bleak unkindly fog 
 
 To touch the prosperous growth of this tall wood. 270 
 
 Lady. Nay, gentle shepherd, ill is lost that praise 
 That is addressed to unattending ears. 
 Not any boast of skill, but extreme shift 
 How to regain my severed company, 
 Compelled me to awake the courteous Echo 275 
 
 To give me answer from her mossy couch. 
 
 Comus. What chance, good Lady, hath bereft you thus? 
 
 Lady. Dim darkness and this leavy labyrinth. 
 
 Comus. Could that divide you from near -ushering 
 guides? 
 
 Lady. They left me weary on a grassy turf. 230 
 
 Comus. By falsehood, or discourtesy, or why? 
 
 Lady. To seek i' the valley some cool friendly spring. 
 
 Comus. And left your fair side all unguarded, Lady? 
 
 Lady. They were but twain, and purposed quick 
 return. 
 
 Comus. Perhaps forestalling night prevented them. 285 
 
 Lady. How easy my misfortune is to hit ! 
 
 Comus. Imports their loss, beside the present need? 
 
 Lady. No less than if I should my brothers lose. 
 
 Comus. Were they of manly prime, or youthful bloom? 
 
 Lady. As smooth as Hebe's their unrazored lips. 290 
 
 Comus. Two such I saw, what time the laboured ox 
 In his loose traces from the furrow came, 
 And the swinked hedger at his supper sat. 
 I saw them under a green mantling vine, 
 That crawls along the side of yon small hill, 205 
 
COMUS 45 
 
 Plucking ripe clusters from the tender shoots; 
 
 Their port was more than human, as they stood^ 
 
 I took it for a faery vision 
 
 Of some gay creatures of the element, 
 
 That in the colours pf the rainbow live, , soo 
 
 And play i' the plighted clouds. I was awe-strook^ 
 
 And, as I passed, I worshipped. If those you seek, 
 
 It were a journey like the path to Heaven 
 
 To help you find them. 
 
 Lady. Gentle villager, 
 
 What readiest way would bring me to that place. 305 
 
 Comus. Due west it rises from this shrubby point. 
 
 Lady. To find out that, good shepherd, I suppose, 
 In such a scant allowance of star-light, 
 Would overtask the best land-pilot's art, 
 Without the sure guess of well-practised feet. 310 
 
 Comus. I know each lane, and every alley green, 
 Dingle, or bushy dell, of this wild wood, 
 And every bosky bourn from side to side, 
 My daily walks and ancient neighbourhood; 
 And, if your stray attendance be yet lodged, 315 
 
 Or shroud within these limits, I shall know 
 Ere morrow wake, or the low-roosted lark 
 From her thatched pallet rouse. If otherwise, 
 I can conduct you, Lady, to a low 
 
 But loyal cottage, where you may be safe 320 
 
 Till further quest. 
 
 Lady, Shepherd, I take thy word, 
 
 And trust thy honest-offered courtesy, 
 Which oft is sooner found in lowly sheds, 
 With smoky rafters, than in tapestry halls 
 And courts of princes, where it first was named, 325 
 
46 COMUS 
 
 And yet is most pretended. In a place 
 Less warranted than this, or less secure, 
 I cannot be, that I should fear to change it. 
 Eye me, blest Providence, and square my trial 
 To my proportioned strength! Shepherd, lead on. t 330 
 
 [Exeunt. 
 
 Enter the Two BROTHERS. 
 
 Eld. Bro. Unmuffle, ye faint stars; and thou, fair moon, 
 That wont'st to love the traveller's benison, 
 Stoop thy pale visage through an amber cloud, 
 And disinherit Chaos, that reigns here 
 In double night of darkness and of shades; 335 
 
 Or, if your influence be quite dammed up 
 With black usurping mists, some gentle taper. 
 Though a rush-candle from the wicker hole 
 Of some clay habitation, visit us 
 
 With thy long levelled rule of streaming light, 340 
 
 And thou shalt be our star of Arcady, 
 Or Tyrian Cynosure. Utflt teiMr^ K 
 
 Sec. Bro. Or, if our eyes 
 
 Be barred that happiness, might we but hear 
 The folded flocks, penned in their wattled cotes, 
 Or sound of pastoral reed with oaten stops, 
 Or whistle from the lodge, or village cock 
 Count the night-watches to his feathery dames, 
 'T would be some solace yet, some little cheering, 
 In this close dungeon of innumerous boughs. 
 But, oh, that hapless virgin, our lost sister! 
 Where may she wander now, whither betake her 
 From the chill dew, amongst rude burs and thistles? 
 Perhaps some cold bank is her bolster now, 
 
COMUS 47 
 
 Or 'gainst the rugged bark of some broad elm 
 
 Leans her unpillowed head, fraught with sad fears. 355 
 
 What if in wild amazement and affright, 
 
 Or, while we speak, within the direful grasp 
 
 Of savage hunger, or of savage heat ! 
 
 Eld. Bro. Peace, brother: be not over-exquisite 
 To cast the fashion of uncertain evils; 360 
 
 For, grant they be so, while they rest unknown, 
 What need a man forestall his date of grief, 
 And run to meet what he would most avoid? 
 Or, if they be but false alarms of fear, 
 How bitter is such self-delusion ! 365 
 
 I do not think my sister so to seek, 
 Or so unprincipled in virtue's book, 
 And the sweet peace that goodness bosoms ever 9 
 As that the single want of light and noise 
 (Not being in danger, as I trust she is not) 370 
 
 Could stir the constant mood of her calm thoughts, 
 And put them into misbecoming plight. 
 Virtue could see to do what Virtue would 
 By her own radiant light, though sun and moon 
 Were in the flat sea sunk. And Wisdom's self 375 
 
 Oft seeks to sweet retired solitude, 
 Where, with her best nurse, Contemplation, 
 She plumes her feathers, and lets grow her wings, 
 That, in the various bustle of resort, 
 Were all to-ruffled, and sometimes impaired. sso 
 
 He that has light within his own clear breast 
 May sit i' the centre, and enjoy bright day: 
 But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts 
 Benighted walks under the mid-day sun; 
 Himself is his own dungeon. 
 
48 COMUS 
 
 Stc. Bro. Tis most true sss 
 
 That musing Meditation most affects 
 The pensive secrecy of desert cell, 
 Far from the cheerful haunt of men and herds, 
 And sits as safe as in a senate-house; 
 For who would rob a hermit of his weeds, 390 
 
 His few books, or his beads, or maple dish, 
 Or do his grey hairs any violence? 
 But Beauty, like the fair Hesperian tree 
 Laden with blooming gold, had need the guard 
 Of dragon-watch with unenchanted eye 395 
 
 To save her blossoms, ana defend her fruit, 
 From the rash hand of bold Incontinence. 
 You may as well spread out the unsunned heaps 
 Of miser's treasure by an outlaw's den, 
 And tell me it is safe, as bid me hope 400 
 
 Danger will wink on Opportunity, 
 And let a single helpless maiden pass 
 Uninjured in this wild surrounding waste. 
 Of night or loneliness it recks me not; 
 I fear the dread events that dog them both, 405 
 
 Lest some ill-greeting touch attempt the person 
 Of our unowned sister. 
 
 Eld. Bro. I do not, brother, 
 
 Infer as if I thought my sister's state 
 Secure without all doubt or controversy; 
 Yet, where an equal poise of hope and fear 410 
 
 Does arbitrate the event, my nature is 
 That I incline to hope rather than fear, 
 And gladly banish squint suspicion. 
 My sister is not so defenceless left 
 As you imagine; she has a hidden strength, 410 
 
COMUS 49 
 
 Which you remember not. 
 
 Sec. Bro. What hidden strength, 
 
 Unless the strength of Heaven, if you mean that? 
 
 Eld. Bro. I mean that too, but yet a hidden strength, 
 Which, if Heaven gave it, may be termed her own. 
 T is chastity, my brother, chastity: 420 
 
 She that has that is clad in complete steel, 
 And, like a quivered nymph with arrows keen, 
 May trace huge forests, and unharboured heaths, 
 Infamous hills, and sandy perilous wilds; 
 Where, through the sacred rays of chastity, 425 
 
 No savage fierce, bandite, or mountaineer, 
 Will dare to soil her virgin purity. 
 Yea, there where very desolation dwells, 
 By grots and caverns shagged with horrid shades, 
 She may pass on with unblenched majesty, 430 
 
 Be it not done in pride, or in presumption. 
 Some say no evil thing that walks by night, 
 In fog or fire, by laKe or moorish fen, 
 Blue meagre hag, or stubborn unlaid ghost, 
 That breaks his magic chains at curfew time, 435 
 
 No goblin or swart faery of the mine, 
 Hath hurtful power o'er true virginity. 
 Do ye believe me yet, or shall I call 
 Antiquity from the old schools of Greece 
 To testify the arms of chastity? 440 
 
 Hence had the huntress Dian her dread bow, 
 Fair silver-shafted queen for ever chaste, 
 Wherewith she tr/red the brinded lioness 
 And spotted mountain-pard, but set at nought 
 The frivolous bolt of Cupid ; gods and men 445 
 
 Feared her stern frown, and she was queen o' the woods. 
 
 (0134) 4 
 
50 COMUS 
 
 What was that snaky-headed Gorgon shield 
 
 That wise Minerva wore, imconquered virgin, 
 
 Wherewith she freezed her foes to congealed stone. 
 
 But rigid looks of chaste austerity, 450 
 
 And noble grace that dashed brute violence 
 
 With sudden adoration and blank awe? 
 
 So dear to Heaven is saintly chastity 
 
 That, when a soul is found sincerely so, 
 
 A thousand liveried angels lackey her, 455 
 
 Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt, 
 
 And in clear dream and solemn vision 
 
 Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear; 
 
 Till oft converse with heavenly habitants 
 
 Begin to cast a beam on the outward shape, 460 
 
 The unpolluted temple of the mind, 
 
 And turns it by degrees to the soul's essence, 
 
 Till all be made immortal. But, when lust, 
 
 By unchaste looks, loose gestures, and foul talk, 
 
 But most by lewd and lavish act of sin, 65 
 
 Lets in defilement to the inward parts, 
 
 The soul grows clotted by contagion, 
 
 Imbodies, and imbrutes, till she quite lose 
 
 The divine property of her first being. 
 
 Such are those thick and gloomy shadows damp *70 
 
 Oft seen in charnel-vaults and sepulchres, 
 
 Lingering and sitting by a new-made grave, 
 
 As loth to leave the body that it loved, 
 
 And linked itself by carnal sensualty 
 
 To a degenerate and degraded state. 478 
 
 Sec. Bro. How charming is divine Philosophy! 
 Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose s 
 But musical as is Apollo's lute, 
 
COMUS 51 
 
 And a perpetual feast of nectared sweets, 
 Where no crude surfeit reigns. 
 
 Eld. Bro. List! list! I hear 430 
 
 Some far-off hallo break the silent air. 
 
 Sec. Bro. Methought so too; what should it be? 
 
 Eld. Bro. For certain, 
 
 Either some one, like us, night-foundered here, 
 Or else some neighbour woodman, or, at worst, 
 Some roving robber calling to his fellows. 435 
 
 Sec. Bro. Heaven keep my sister ! Again, again, and near ! 
 Best draw, and stand upon our guard. 
 
 Eld. Bro. I '11 hallo. 
 
 If he be friendly, he comes well : if not, 
 Defence is a good cause, and Heaven be for us. 
 
 Enter the ATTENDANT SPIRIT, habited like a shepherd. 
 
 That hallo I should know. What are you? speak. 490 
 Come not too near; you fall on iron stakes else, 
 
 Spir. What voice is that? my young Lord? speak again. 
 
 Sec. Bro. O brother, 't is my father's Shepherd, sure. 
 
 Eld. Bro. Thyrsis ! whose artful strains have oft delayed 
 The huddling brook to hear his madrigal, 495 
 
 And sweetened every musk-rose of the dale. 
 How earnest thou here, good swain? Hath any ram 
 Slipped from the fold, or young kid lost his dam, 
 Or straggling wether the pent flock forsook? 
 How couldst thou find this dark sequestered nook? 500 
 
 Spir. O my loved master's heir, and his next joy, 
 I came not here on such a trivial toy 
 As a strayed ewe, or to pursue the stealth 
 Of pilfering wolf; not all the fleecy wealth 
 That doth enrich these downs is worth a thought 505 
 
52 COMUS 
 
 To this my errand, and the care it brought. 
 But, oh! my virgin Lady, where is she? 
 How chance she is not in your company? 
 
 Eld. Bro. To tell thee sadly, Shepherd, without blame 
 Or our neglect, we lost her as we came. 510 
 
 Spir. Ay me unhappy ! then my fears are true. 
 
 Eld. Bro. What fears, good Thyrsis? Prithee briefly 
 shew. 
 
 Spir. I '11 tell ye. 'T is not vain or fabulous 
 (Though so esteemed by shallow ignorance) 
 What the sage poets, taught by the heavenly Muse, 515 
 Storied of old in high immortal verse 
 Of dire Chimeras and enchanted isles, 
 And rifted rocks whose entrance leads to Hell; A^fe 
 For such there be, but unbelief is blind. 
 
 Within the navel of this hideous wood, 520 
 
 Immured in cypress shades, a sorcerer dwells, 
 Of Bacchus and of Circe born, great Comus, 
 Deep skilled in all his mother's witcheries, 
 And here to every thirsty wanderer 
 By sly enticement gives his baneful cup, 525 
 
 With many murmurs mixed, whose pleasing poison 
 The visage quite transforms of him that drinks, 
 And the inglorious likeness of a beast 
 Fixes instead, unmoulding reason's mintage 
 Charactered in the face. This have I learnt 530 
 
 Tending my flocks hard by i' the hilly crofts 
 That brow this bottom glade; whence night by night 
 He and his monstrous rout are heard to howl 
 Like stabled wolves, or tigers at their prey, 
 Doing abhorred rites to Hecate 535 
 
 In their obscured haunts of inmost bowers 
 
COMUS 53 
 
 Yet have they many baits and guileful spells 
 
 To inveigle and invite the unwary sense 
 
 Of them that pass unweeting by the way. 
 
 This evening late, by then the ojiewing flocks MO 
 
 Had ta'en their supper on the savoury herb 
 
 Of knot-grass dew-besprent, and were in fold, 
 
 I sat me down to watch upon a bank 
 
 With ivy canopied, and interwove 
 
 With flaunting honeysuckle, and began, 545 
 
 Wrapt in a pleasing fit of melancholy, 
 
 To meditate my rural minstrelsy, 
 
 Till fancy had her fill. But ere a close 
 
 The wonted roar was up amidst the woods, 
 
 And filled the air with barbarous dissonance; 550 
 
 At which I ceased, and listened them a while, 
 
 Till an unusual stop of sudden silence 
 
 / * 
 
 Gave respite to the drowsy-flighted steeds 
 That draw the litter of close-curtained Sleep. 
 At last a soft and solemn-breathing sound 555 
 
 y Rose like a steam of rich distilled perfumes, 
 And stole upon the air, that even Silence 
 Was took ere she was ware, and wished she might 
 Deny her nature, and be never more, 
 Still to be so displaced. I was all ear, 500 
 
 And took in strains that might create a soul 
 Under the ribs of Death. But, oh ! ere long 
 Too well I did perceive it was the voice 
 Of my most honoured Lady, your dear sister. 
 Amazed I stood, harrowed with grief and fear : sos 
 
 And " O poor hapless nightingale," thought I, 
 "How sweet thou sing'st, how near the deadly snare!" 
 Then down the lawns I ran with headlong haste, 
 
54 COMUS 
 
 Through paths and turnings often trod by day, 
 
 Till, guided by mine ear, I found the place 6To 
 
 Where that damned wizard, hid in sly disguise 
 
 (For so by certain signs I knew), had met 
 
 Already, ere my best speed could prevent, 
 
 The aidless innocent lady, his wished prey; 
 
 Who gently asked if he had seen such two, 5T5 
 
 Supposing him some neighbour villager. 
 
 Longer I durst not stay, but soon I guessed 
 
 Ye were the two she meant; with that I sprung 
 
 Into swift flight, till I had found you here; 
 
 But further know I not. 
 
 Sec. Bro. O night and shades, 580 
 
 How are ye joined with hell in triple knot 
 Against the unarmed weakness of one virgin, 
 Alone and helpless! Is this the confidence 
 You gave me, brother? 
 
 Eld. Bro. Yes, and keep it still; 
 
 Lean on it safely; not a period sss 
 
 Shall be unsaid for me. Against the threats 
 Of malice or of sorcery, or that power 
 Which erring men call Chance, this I hold firm: 
 'Virtue may be assailed, but never hurt, 
 Surprised by unjust force, but not enthralled; 590 
 
 Yea, even that which Mischief meant most harm 
 Shall in the happy trial prove most glory. 
 But evil on itself shall back recoil, 
 And mix no more with goodness, when at last, 
 Gathered like scum, and settled to itself, > 
 
 It shall be in eternal restless change 
 Self-fed and self-consumed. If this fail, 
 The pillared firmament is rottenness, 
 
COMUS 55 
 
 And earth's base built on stubble. But come, let's on! 
 
 Against the opposing will and arm of Heaven 600 
 
 May never this just sword be lifted up; 
 
 But, for that damned magician, let him be girt 
 
 With all the griesly legions that troop 
 
 Under the sooty flag of Acheron, .i^v**** 
 
 4>* ji " '^"~ "v 
 
 Harpies and Hydras, or all the monstrous forms 605 
 
 'Twixt Africa and Ind, I '11 find him out, >!/ f-f 
 
 And force him to return his purchase back, 
 Or drag him by the curls to a foul death, 
 Cursed as his life. 
 
 Spir. Alas ! good venturous youth, 
 
 I love thy courage yet, and bold emprise; eio 
 
 But here thy sword can do thee little stead. 
 Far other arms and other weapons must 
 Be those that quell the might of hellish charms. 
 He with his bare wand can unthread thy joints, 
 And crumble all thy sinews. 
 
 Eld. Bro. Why, prithee, Shepherd, 6is 
 
 How durst thou then thyself approach so near 
 As to make this relation? 
 
 ^^Spir. Care and utmost shifts 
 
 How to secure the Lady from surprisal 
 Brought to my mind a certain shepherd lad, 
 Of small regard to see to, yet well skilled 20 
 
 In every virtuous plant and healing herb 
 That spreads her verdant leaf to the morning ray. 
 He loved me well, and oft would beg me sing; 
 Which when I did, he on the tender grass 
 Would sit, and hearken even to ecstasy, 025 
 
 And in requital ope his leathern scrip, 
 And show me simples of a thousand names, 
 
56 COMXTS 
 
 Telling their strange and vigorous faculties. 
 
 Amongst the rest a small unsightly root, 
 
 But of divine effect, he culled me out. oc 
 
 The leaf was darkish, and had prickles on it, 
 
 But in another country, as he said, 
 
 Bore a bright golden flower, but not in this soil: 
 
 Unknown, and like esteemed, and the dull swain 
 
 Treads on it daily with his clouted shoon; 635 
 
 And yet more medicinal is it than that Moly 
 
 That Hermes once to wise Ulysses gave. 
 
 He called it Hsemony, and gave it me, 
 
 And bade me keep it as of sovran use 
 
 Gainst all enchantments, mildew blast, or damp, ?>40 
 
 Or ghastly Furies' apparition. 
 
 I pursed it up, but little reckoning made, 
 
 Till now that this extremity compelled. 
 
 But now I find it true; for by this means 
 
 I knew the foul enchanter, though disguised, 645 
 
 Entered the very lime-twigs of his spells, 
 
 And yet came off. If you have this about you 
 
 (As I will give you when we go) you may 
 
 Boldly assault *fne necromancer's hall; 
 
 Where if he be, with dauntless hardihood eso 
 
 And brandished blade rush on him : break his glass, 
 
 And shed the luscious liquor on the ground; 
 
 But seize his wand. Though he and his curst crew 
 
 Fierce sign of battle make, and menace high, 
 
 Or, like the sons of Vulcan, vomit smoke, 655 
 
 Yet will they soon retire, if he but shrink. 
 
 Eld. Bro. Thyrsis, lead on apace; I '11 follow thee; 
 And some good angel bear a shield before us ! 
 
JJl 
 
 Ar 
 Tl 
 
 COMUS 57 
 
 The Scene changes to a stately palace, set out with all manner of 
 deliciousness : soft music, tables spread with all dainties. COM us 
 appears with his rabble, and THE LADY set in an enchanted 
 chair; to whom he offers his glass; which she puts by, and goes 
 about to rise. 
 
 Comus. Nay, Lady, sit. If I but wave this wand, 
 Your nerves are all chained up in alabaster, eoo 
 
 And you a statue, or as Daphne was, 
 Root-bound, that fled Apollo. 
 
 Lady. Fool, do not boast. 
 
 Thou canst not touch the freedom of my mind 
 With all thy charms, although this corporal rind 
 Thou hast immanacled while Heaven sees good. 665 
 
 Comus. Why are you vexed, Lady? why do you frown? 
 Here dwell no frowns, nor anger; from these gates 
 Sorrow flies far. See, here be all the pleasures 
 That fancy can beget on youthful thoughts, 
 When the fresh blood grows lively, and returns flto 
 
 Brisk as the April buds in primrose season. 
 And first behold this cordial julep here, 
 That flames and dances in his crystal bounds, 
 
 ith spirits of balm and fragrant syrups mixed. 
 
 ot that Nepenthes which the wife of Thone 675 
 
 In Egypt gave to Jove-born Helena 
 Is of such power to stir up joy as this, 
 To life so friendly, or so cool to thirst^ 
 Why should you be so cruel to yourself, 
 And to those dainty limbs, which Nature lent 
 For gentle usage and soft delicacy ? 
 But you invert the covenants of her trust, 
 And harshly deal, like an ill borrower, 
 With that which you received on other terms, 
 
 af** m 
 
58 COMUS 
 
 Scorning the unexempt condition 685 
 
 By which all mortal frailty must subsist, 
 
 Refreshment after toil, ease after pain, 
 
 That have been tired all day without repast, 
 
 And timely rest have wanted. But, fair virgin, 
 
 This will restore all soon. 
 
 Lady. 'T will not, false traitor ! 690 
 
 'T will not restore the truth and honesty 
 That thou hast banished from thy tongue with lies. 
 Was this the cottage and the safe abode 
 Thou told'st me of? What grim aspects are these, 
 These ugly-headed monsters? Mercy guard me! 695 
 
 Hence with thy brewed enchantments, foul deceiver! 
 Hast thou betrayed my credulous innocence 
 With vizored falsehood and base forgery? 
 And wouldst thou seek again to trap me here 
 With lickerish baits, fit to ensnare a brute? 700 
 
 Were it a draught for Juno when she banquets, 
 I would not taste thy treasonous offer. None 
 But such as are good men can give good things; 
 And that which is not good is not delicious 
 To a well-governed and wise appetite. 705 
 
 Comus. O foolishness of men! that lend their ears ^ W j 
 To those budge doctors of the Stoic fur, - ' ^T^o**^ 
 And fetch their precepts from the Cynic tub, M,*^*-*^- 
 Praising the lean and sallow Abstinence ! 
 Wherefore did Nature pour her bounties forth no 
 
 With such a full and unwithdrawing hand, 
 Covering the earth with odours, fruits, and flocks, 
 Thronging the seas with spawn innumerable, j l * ^ 
 But all to please and sate the curious taste? 
 And set to work millions of spinning worms, 7U 
 
COMUS 59 
 
 That in their green shops weave the smooth-haired silk, 
 
 To deck her sons; and, that no corner might 
 
 Be vacant of her plenty, in her own loins 
 
 She hutched the all-worshipped ore and precious gems, 
 
 To store her children with. If all the world 720 
 
 Should, in a pet of temperance, feed on pulse, c^rcvuvN 
 
 Drink the clear stream, and nothing wear but frieze, 
 
 The All-giver would be unthanked, would be unpraised, 
 
 Not half his riches known, and yet despised; 
 
 And we should serve him as a grudging master, 725 
 
 As a penurious niggard of h' v wealth, 
 
 And live like Nature's bastards, not her sons, 
 
 Who would be quite surcharged with her own weight, 
 
 And strangled with her waste fertility: 
 
 The earth cumbered, and the winged air darked with plumes, 
 
 The herds would over-multitude their lords; 731 
 
 The sea o'erfraught would swell, and the unsought diamonds 
 
 Would so emblaze the forehead of the deep, 
 
 And so bestud with stars, that they below 
 
 Would grow inured to light, and come at last 735 
 
 To gaze upon the sun with shameless brows. 
 
 List, Lady; be not coy, and be not cozened 
 
 With that same vaunted name, Virginity. 
 
 Beauty is Nature's coin; must not be hoarded, 
 
 But must be current; and the good thereof 740 
 
 Consists in mutual and partaken bliss, 
 
 Unsavoury in the enjoyment of itself. 
 
 If you let slip time, like a neglected rose 
 
 It withers on the stalk with languished head. 
 
 Beauty is Nature's brag, and must be shown 745 
 
 In courts, at feasts, and high solemnities, 
 
 Where most may wonder at the workmanship. 
 
60 COMUS 
 
 It is for homely features to keep home; 
 
 They had their name thence: coarse complexions 
 
 And cheeks of sorry grain will serve to ply 750 
 
 The sampler, and to tease the huswife's wool. 
 
 What need a vermeil-tinctured lip for that, 
 
 Love-darting eyes, or tresses like the morn? 
 
 There was another meaning in these gifts; 
 
 Think what, and be advised; you are but young yet. 755 
 
 Lady. I had not thought to have unlocked my lips 
 In this unhallowed air, but that this juggler 
 Would think to charm my judgment, as mine eyes, *> 
 
 Obtruding false rules pranked in reason's garb. 
 I hate when vice can bolt her arguments 760 
 
 And virtue has no tongue to check her pride. 
 Impostor! do not charge most innocent Nature, 
 As if she would her children should be riotous V*N^ ^ 
 With her abundance. She, good cateress, ^ 
 Means her provision only to the good, ^ 70s 
 
 That live according to her sober laws, 
 And holy dictate of spare Temperance. 
 If every just man that now pines with want 
 Had but a moderate and beseeming share 
 Of that which lewdly-pampered Luxury 770 
 
 Now heaps upon some few with vast excess, 
 Nature's full blessings would be well-dispensed 
 In unsuperfluous even proportion, 
 And she no whit encumbered with her store; 
 And then the Giver would be better thanked, 775 
 
 His praise due paid : for swinish gluttony 
 Ne'er looks to Heaven amidst his gorgeous feast, 
 But with besotted base ingratitude 
 Crams, and blasphemes his Feeder. Shall I go on? 
 
COMUS 6l 
 
 Or have I said enow? To him that dares 780 
 
 Arm his profane tongue with contemptuous words 
 
 Against the sun-clad power of chastity 
 
 Fain would I something say; yet to what end? 
 
 Thou hast nor ear, nor soul, to apprehend 
 
 The sublime notion and high mystery 785 
 
 That must be uttered to unfold the sage 
 
 And serious doctrine of Virginity; 
 
 And thou art worthy that thou shouldst not know 
 
 More happiness than this thy present lot. 
 
 Enjoy your dear wit, and gay rhetoric, ~z)u0t^y&*^ 790 
 
 That hath so well been taught her dazzling fence; 
 
 Thou art not fit to hear thyself convinced. 
 
 Yet, should I try, the uncontrolled worth 
 
 Of this pure cause would kindle my rapt spirits 
 
 To such a flame of sacred vehemence 795 
 
 That dumb things would be moved to sympathize, 
 
 And the brute Earth would lend her nerves, and shake. 
 
 Till all thy magic structures, reared so high, 
 
 Were shattered into heaps o'er thy false head. 
 
 Comus, She fables not. I feel that I do fear soo 
 
 Her words set off by some superior power; 
 And, though not mortal, yet a cold shuddering dew rr v 
 Dips me all o'er, as when the wrath of Jove 
 Speaks thunder and the chains of Erebus 
 To some of Saturn's crew. I must dissemble, 
 And try her yet more strongly. Come, no more! 
 This is mere moral babble, and direct 
 Against the canon laws of our foundation. 
 I must not suffer this; yet 't is but the lees 
 And settlings of a melancholy blood. 8io 
 
 But this will cure all straight ; one sip of this 
 
62 COMUS 
 
 Will bathe the drooping spirits in delight 
 
 Beyond the bliss of dreams. Be wise, and taste . . 
 
 f < 
 
 The BROTHERS rush in with swords drawn, wrest his glass out of his 
 hand, and break it against the ground: his rout make sign of re- 
 sistance, but are all driven in. The ATTENDANT SPIRIT conies in. 
 
 Spir. What! have you let the false enchanter scape? 
 O ye mistook; ye should have snatched his wand, sis 
 And bound him fast. Without his rod reversed, 
 And backward mutters of dissevering power, 
 We cannot free the Lady that sits here 
 In stony fetters fixed and motionless. 
 Yet stay: be not disturbed; now I bethink me, sao 
 
 Some other means I have which may be used, 
 Which once of Melibceus old I learnt, 
 The soothest shepherd that e'er piped on plains. 
 
 There is a gentle Nymph not far from hence, 
 That with moist curb sways the smooth Severn stream : 
 Sabrina is her name: a virgin pure; 826 
 
 Whilom she was the daughter of Locrine, 
 That had the sceptre from his father Brute. 
 She, guiltless damsel, flying the mad pursuit 
 Of her enraged stepdame, Guendolen, sso 
 
 Commended her fair innocence to the flood 
 That stayed her flight with his cross-flowing course. 
 The water-nymphs, that in the bottom played, 
 Held up their pearled wrists, and took her in, 
 Bearing her straight to aged Nereus' hall; 835 
 
 Who, piteous of her woes, reared her lank head, 
 And gave her to his daughters to imbathe 
 In nectared lavers strewed with asphodil, 
 And through the porch and inlet of each sense 
 
COMUS 6^ 
 
 Dropt in ambrosial oils, till she revived, 840 
 
 A"rt underwent a quick immortal change, 
 
 Made Goddess of the river. Still she retains 
 
 Her maiden gentleness, and oft at eve 
 
 Visits the herds along the twilight meadows, 
 
 Helping all urchin blasts, and ill-luck signs 84* 
 
 That the shrewd meddling elf delights to make, 
 
 Which she with precious vialed liquors heals: 
 
 For which the shepherds, at their festivals. 
 
 Carol her goodness loud in rustic lays, 
 
 And throw sweet garland wreaths into her stream sso 
 
 Of pansies, pinks, and gaudy daffodils. 
 
 And, as the old swain said, she can unlock 
 
 The clasping charm, and thaw the numbing spell, 
 
 If she be right invoked in warbled song; 
 
 For maidenhood she loves, and will be swift sss 
 
 To aid a virgin, such as was herself, 
 
 In hard-besetting need. This will I try, 
 
 And add the power of some adjuring verse, 
 
 \ , Song. 
 
 Sabrina fair, 
 
 Listen where thou art sitting 860 
 
 Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave, W**j U|*V 
 
 In twisted braids of lilies knitting 
 The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair ; 
 
 Listen for dear honour's sake, 
 
 Goddess of the silver lake, 865 
 
 Listen and save! 
 
 Listen, and appear to us, 
 In name of great Oceanus, 
 
64 COMUS 
 
 By the earth-shaking Neptune's mace, 
 
 And Tethys' grave majestic pace; 
 
 By hoary Nereus' wrinkled look, 
 
 And the Carpathian wizard's hook; 
 
 By scaly Triton's winding shell, 
 
 And old soothsaying Glaucus' spell; 
 
 By Leucothea's lovely hands, 875 
 
 And her son that rules the strands; 
 
 By Thetis' tinsel-slippered feet, 
 
 And the songs of Sirens sweet; 
 
 By dead Parthenope's dear tomb, 
 
 And fair Ligea's golden comb, ssc 
 
 Wherewith she sits on diamond rocks 
 
 Sleeking her soft alluring locks; 
 
 By all the nymphs that nightly dance 
 
 Upon thy streams with wily glance; 
 
 Rise, rise, and heave thy rosy head 
 
 From thy coral-paven bed, 
 
 And bridle in thy headlong wave, 
 
 Till thou our summons answered have. 
 
 Listen and save! 
 
 SABRINA rises, attenaed by Water-nymphs, and sings. 
 
 By the rushy-fringed bank, 
 
 Where grows the willow and the osier dank, 
 
 My sliding chariot stays, 
 Thick set with agate, and the azurn sheen 
 Of turkis blue, and emerald green, 
 
 That in the channel strays : 
 Whilst from off the waters fleet 
 Thus I set my printless feet 
 
COMUS 65 
 
 O'er the cowslip's velvet head, 
 
 That bends not as I tread. 
 
 Gentle swain, at thy request wo 
 
 I am here ! 
 
 Spir. Goddess dear, 
 We implore thy powerful hand 
 To undo the charmed band 
 
 Of true virgin here distressed 905 
 
 Through the force and through the wile 
 Of unblessed enchanter vile. 
 
 Sabr. Shepherd, 't is my office best 
 To help ensnared chastity. 
 
 Brightest Lady, look on me. 910 
 
 Thus I sprinkle on thy breast 
 Drops that from my fountain pure 
 I have kept of precious cure; 
 Thrice upon thy finger's tip, 
 
 Thrice upon thy rubied lip : 915 
 
 Next this marble venomed seat, 
 Smeared with gums of glutinous heat, 
 I touch with chaste palms moist and cold. 
 Now the spell hath lost his hold; 
 And I must haste ere morning hour 920 
 
 To wait in Amphitrite's bower. 
 
 SABRINA descends, and THE LADY rises out of her seat 
 
 Spir. Virgin, daughter of Locrine, 
 Sprung of old Anchises' line, 
 May thy brimmed waves for this 
 Their full tribute never miss 92* 
 
 From a thousand petty rills, 
 
 (0134) 5 
 
66 COMUS 
 
 That tumble down the snowy hills : 
 Summer drouth or singed air 
 Never scorch thy tresses fair, 
 
 Nor wet October's torrent flood eso 
 
 Thy molten crystal fill with mud; 
 May thy billows roll ashore 
 ^ The beryl and the golden ore; 
 May thy lofty head be crowned 
 With many a tower and terrace round, 935 
 
 And here and there thy banks upon 
 With groves of myrrh and cinnamon. 
 
 Come, Lady; while Heaven lends us grace, 
 Let us fly this cursed place, 
 
 Lest the sorcerer us entice 340 
 
 With some other new device. 
 Not a waste or needless sound 
 Till we come to holier ground. 
 I shall be your faithful guide 
 
 Through this gloomy covert wide; 945 
 
 And not many furlongs thence 
 Is your Father's residence, 
 Where this night are met in state 
 Many a friend to gratulate 
 
 His wished presence, and beside 950 
 
 All the swains that there abide 
 With jigs and rural dance resort. 
 We shall catch them at their sport, 
 And our sudden coming there 
 
 Will double all their mirth and cheer. 955 
 
 Come, let us haste; the stars grow high, 
 But Night sits monarch yet in the mid sky. 
 
COMUS 67 
 
 The Scene changes, presenting Ludlow Town, and the Presidents 
 Castle: then come in Country Dancers: after them the ATTEN- 
 DANT SPIRIT, with the two BROTHERS and THE LADY. 
 
 Song. 
 
 Spir. Back, shepherds, back ! Enough your 
 Till next sun-shine holiday. 
 Here be, without duck or nod, 9eo 
 
 Other trippings to be trod 
 Of lighter toes, and such court guise 
 As Mercury did first devise 
 With the mincing Dryades 
 On the lawns and on the leas. 966 
 
 ^ 
 
 This second Song presents them to their Father and Mother 
 
 Noble Lord and Lady bright, 
 I have brought ye new delight. 
 Here behold so goodly grown 
 Three fair branches of your own. 
 Heaven hath timely tried their youth, 970 
 
 Their faith, their patience, and their truth, 
 And sent them here through hard assays 
 With a crown of deathless praise, 
 To triumph in victorious dance 
 O'er sensual folly and intemperance. 975 
 
 The dances being ended, the SPIRIT epilogutzes. 
 
 Spir. To the ocean now I fly, 
 And those happy climes that lie 
 Where day never shuts his eye, 
 Up in the broad fields of the sky. 
 
68 COMUS 
 
 There I suck the liquid air, aso 
 
 All amidst the gardens fair 
 Of Hesperus, and his daughters three 
 That sing about the golden tree. 
 Along the crisped 'shades and bowers 
 Revels the spruce and jocund Spring; 935 
 
 The Graces and the rosy-bosomed Hours 
 Thither all their bounties bring. 
 There eternal Summer dwells, 
 And west winds with musky wing 
 About the cedarn alleys fling 900 
 
 Nard and cassia's balmy smells. 
 NS ^ Iris there with humid bow 
 
 Waters the odorous banks, that blow 
 Flowers of more mingled hue 
 
 \y\jo t A>A$*Trian her purfled scarf can shew, 995 
 
 And drenches with Elysian dew 
 (List, mortals, if your ears be true) 
 Beds of hyacinth and roses, 
 Where young Adonis oft reposes, 
 Waxing well of his deep wound, 1000 
 
 In slumber soft, and on the ground 
 Sadly sits the Assyrian queen. 
 But far above, in spangled sheen, 
 Celestial Cupid, her famed son, advanced 
 Holds his dear Psyche, sweet entranced, 1005 
 
 After her wandering labours long, 
 Till free consent the gods among 
 Make her his eternal bride, 
 And from her fair unspotted side 
 Two blissful twins are to be born, 1010 
 
 Youth and Joy ; so Jove hath sworn. 
 
COMUS 69 
 
 But now my task is smoothly done: 
 I can fly, or I can run 
 Quickly to the green .earth's end, 
 Where the bowed welkin slow doth bend, 1015 
 
 And from thence can soar as soon 
 To the corners of the moon. 
 Mortals, that would follow me, 
 Love Virtue : she alone is free. 
 She can teach ye how to climb 1020 
 
 Higher than the sphery chime; 
 Or if Virtue feeble were, 
 Heaven itself would stoop to her. 
 
 Uirtwt s 
 
Atou 
 
 LYCIDAS 
 
 Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more, 
 Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never-sere, 
 I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude 
 And with forc'd fingers rude 
 
 Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. 5 
 
 Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear, 
 Compels me to disturb your season due : 
 For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime, 
 Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer. 
 Who would not sing for Lycidas? he knew lo 
 
 Himself to sing and build the lofty rime. 
 He must not float upon his wat'ry bier 
 Unwept, and welter to the parching wind, 
 Without the meed of some melodious tear. 
 
 M< i * f "- 
 
 Begin then, sisters of the sacred well is 
 
 That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring ; 
 Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string. 
 Hence with denial vain and coy excuse. 
 So may some gentle Muse 
 
 With lucky words favour my destin'd urn, 20 
 
 And as he passes turn 
 And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud. 
 
 For we were nurst upon the self-same hill, 
 Fed the same flock by fountain shade and rill; 
 Together both, ere the high lawns appear'd 25 
 
 70 
 
LYCIDAS /I 
 
 Under the opening eyelids of the morn, 
 
 We drove afield, and both together heard 
 
 What time the gray-fly winds her sultry horn, 
 
 Batt'ning our flocks with the fresh dews of night, 
 
 Oft till the star that rose at ev'ning bright so 
 
 Toward Heav'n's descent had slop'd his westering wheel. 
 
 Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute, 
 
 Tempered to th' oaten flute; 
 
 Rough Satyrs danc'd, and Fauns with cloven heel 
 
 From the glad sound would not be absent long, 35 
 
 And old Damoetas lov'd to hear our song. 
 
 But O the heavy change now thou art gone, 
 Now thou art gone and never must return ! 
 Thee, shepherd, thee the woods an<jl desert caves, 
 With wild thyme and the gadding viiieVergrown, 40 
 And all their echoes mourn. 
 The willows and the hazel copses green 
 Shall now no more be seen 
 Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays. 
 As killing as the canker to the rose, 45 
 
 Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze, 
 Or frost to flowers that their gay wardrobe wear 
 When first the white-thorn blows, 
 Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherd's ear. 
 
 Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep 50 
 Clos'd o'er the head of your lov'd Lycidas? 
 For neither were ye playing on the steep 
 Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie, 
 Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high, 
 Nor yet where fteva spreads her wisar<J stream. 9 M 
 Ay me, I fondly dream ! 
 Had ye been there for what could that have done? 
 
72 LYCIDAS 
 
 What could the Muse herself that Orpheus bore, JfiAW 
 The Muse herself, for her enchanting son, *1\r* Cifcft 
 
 Whom universal Nature did lament, . 6% 
 
 When by the rout that made the hideous roar L 
 His gory visage down the stream was sent, 
 Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore! 
 
 Alas, what boots it with incessant care 
 
 To tend the homely slighted shepherd's trade, 65 
 
 And strictly meditate the thankless Muse? 
 
 Were it not better done as others use, 
 
 To sport with Amaryllis in the shade 
 
 Or with the tangles of Nesera's hair? 
 
 Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise TO 
 
 (That last infirmity of noble mind) 
 
 To scorn delights and live laborious days; 
 
 But the fair guerdon when we hope to find 
 
 And think to burst out into sudden blaze, 
 
 Comes the blind Fury with th' abhorred shears 75 
 
 VAnd slits the thin-spun life. * But not the praise/ 
 Phoebus replied, and touched my trembling ears: 
 ' Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil, 
 Nor in the glistering foil | \UXV\^ 
 
 Set off to th' world, nor in broad rumour lies, y so 
 
 But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes 
 And perfect witness of all-judging Jove. 
 As he pronounces lastly on each deed, 
 Of so much fame in Heav'n expect thy meed.' X 
 
 O fountain Arethuse and thou honour'd flood, 85 
 
 U '> v v ^Smooth-sliding Mincius crown'd with vocal reeds, 
 "That strain I heard was of a higher mood; 
 But now my oat proceeds r?K^pk/^dt 
 And listens to the herald of the sea 
 
IYCIDAS 73 
 
 That came in Neptune's plea. *> 
 
 He ask'd the waves and ask'd the felon winds, 
 
 What hard mishap hath doom'd this gentle swain? 
 
 And questioned every gust of rugged wings 
 
 That blows from off each beaked promontory. 
 
 They knew not of his story, ~-^ GoJL 
 
 And sage Hippotades their answer brings: 
 
 That not a blast was from his dungeon stray 'd; 
 
 The air was calm, and on the level brine 
 
 Sleek Panope with all her sisters pla/d. 
 "Xlt was that fatal and perfidious bark, v 10 
 
 Built in th' eclipse and rigg'd with curses dark, 
 
 That sunk, so k>w that sacred head of thine. 
 Next Camus, reverend sire, went footing slow, 
 
 His mantle hairy and his bonnet sedge, 
 
 Inwrought witji figures dim, and on the edge 105 
 
 Like to that sanguine flower inscribed with woe. 
 
 ' Ah, who hath reft (quoth he) my dearest pledge? 
 
 Last came, and last did go, 
 
 The pilot of the Galilean lake; 
 
 Two massy keys he bore of metals twain; no 
 
 The golden opes, the iron shuts amain. 
 
 He shook his mitr'd locks and stern bespake: 
 
 ' How well could I have spared for thee, young swain, 
 
 Anow of such as for their bellies' sake 
 
 Creep and intrude and climb into the fold; 115 
 
 Of other care they little reckoning make 
 
 Than how to scramble at the shearers' feast, 
 \ And shove away the worthy bidden guest. 
 /\ Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold 
 
 A sheephook, or have learn'd aught else the least 120 
 
 That to the faithful herdsman's art belongs ! /*& 
 
74 LYCIDAS 
 
 What recks it them? What need they? They are sped ; 
 
 And, when they list, their lean and flashy songs 
 
 Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw. 
 
 The hungry sheep look up and are not fed, 125 
 
 But swoln with wind and the rank mist they draw 
 
 Rot inwardly and foul cgntagion spread, 
 
 Besides what the grrm^wolf with privy paw 
 
 Daily devours apace, and nothing said. 
 
 But that two-handed engine at the door > \/ 18 
 
 Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more/ / /> 
 
 Return' Ar^neuSfme oread voice is past SHR& 
 That shrunk thy streams; return, Sicilian Muse, *4Jt,f^ 4 
 And call the vales, and bid them hither cast , ^ , 
 
 Their bells and flowrets of a thousand hues. 
 
 Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use 
 
 Of shades and wanton winds and gushing brooks, " I . 1 
 
 On whose fresh lap the swart star sparely looks/ ^ r 
 
 Throw hither all your quaint enamell'd eyes, 
 
 That on the green turf suck the honied showers 140 
 
 And purple all the ground with vernal flowers. 
 
 Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies, 
 
 The tufted crow-toe and pale jessamine, 
 
 The white pink and the pansy freakt with jet, 
 
 The glowing violet, 145 
 
 The musk-rose and the well attir'd woodbine, 
 
 With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head, 
 
 And every flower that sad embroidery wears; 
 
 Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed, 
 
 And daffadillies fill their cups with tears> \ / 150 
 
 To strew the laureat hearse where Lycid lies: A 
 
 For so, to interpose a little ease, 
 
 Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise, 
 
LYCIDAS 75 
 
 Ay me! whilst thee the shores and sounding seas 
 
 Wash far away, where'er thy bones are hurl'd 155 
 
 Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides, 
 
 Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide 
 
 Visitest the bottom of the monstrous world, 
 
 Or whether thou, to our moist vpwsj denied, 
 
 Sleepst by the fable of Bellerus bid* ieo 
 
 Where the great vision of the guarded mount 
 
 Looks toward Namancos and Bayona's hold. 
 
 Look homeward Angel now, and melt with ruth; ' 
 
 And, O ye dolphins, waft the hapless youth. 
 
 Weep no more, woful shepherds, weep no more; ies 
 j For Lycidas your sorrow is not dead, V^ 
 
 J Sunk though he be beneath the wat'ry floor. 
 So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed, 
 And yet anon repairs his drooping head, 
 And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore iro 
 Flames in the forehead of the morning sky: 
 So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high 
 Through the dear might of him that walk'd the waves, 
 Where other groves and other streams along 
 With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves 175 
 
 And hears the unexpressive nuptial song, 
 In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love. 
 There entertain him all the saints above, 
 In solemn troops and sweet societies, 
 That sing, and singing in their glory move, iso 
 
 And wipe the tears for ever from his eyes. 
 Now, Lycidas, the shepherds weep no more; 
 Henceforth thou art the genius of the shore, 
 In thy large recompense, and shalt be good 
 To all that wander in that perilous flood 185 
 
 K ^ 
 
76 LYCIDAS 
 
 V (HiN 
 
 \ Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks and rills, 
 
 While the still morn went out with sandals gray; 
 
 He touched the tender stops of various quills, 
 
 With eager thought warbling his Doric lay. 
 
 And now the sun had stretch'd out all the hills, 190 
 
 And now was dropt into the western bay; 
 
 At last he rose and twitch'd his mantle blue: 
 
 To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures 
 
MILTONS 
 
 ENGLISH SONNETS 
 
 i 
 
 To the Nightingale 
 
 O Nightingale, that on yon bloomy spray A 
 
 Warbl'st at eve, when all the woods are still; X? 
 Thou with fresh hopes the lover's heart dost fill, Q 
 While the jolly Hours lead on propitious May. ^ 
 
 Thy liquid notes that close the eye of day, 5 
 
 First heard before the shallow cuckoo's bill, 
 Portend success in love; O, if Jove's will 
 Have linked that amorous power to thy soft lay, y> 
 
 Now timely sing, ere the rude bird of hate Q 
 
 Foretell my hopeless doom in some grove nigh : Q 10 {? 
 As thou from year to year hast sung too late 
 
 For my relief, yet hadst no reason why: p ^ 
 
 Whether the Muse, or Love, call thee his mate, 
 Both them I serve, and of their train am I. & f 
 
 u 
 
 On his having arrived at the Age of Tiventy- three 
 
 How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth, 
 Stolen on his wing my three-and-twentieth year! 
 
 77. 
 
7 8 MILTON'S ENGLISH SONNETS 
 
 My hasting days fly on with full career, 
 
 But my late spring no bud or blossom shew'th. 
 Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth 5 
 
 That I to manhood am arrived so near; 
 
 And inward ripeness doth much less appear, 
 
 That some more timely-happy spirits endu'th. 
 Yet, be it less or more, or soon or slow, 
 
 It shall be still in strictest measure even 10 
 
 To that same lot, however mean or high, 
 Toward which Time leads me, and the will of Heaven: 
 
 All is, if I have grace to use it so, 
 
 As ever in my great Task-master's eye. 
 
 \ 
 
 When the Assault 'was intended to the City 
 
 Captain, or Colonel, or knight in arms, 
 
 Whose chance on these defenceless doors may seize. 
 
 If deed of honour did thee ever please, 
 
 Guard them, and him within protect from harms. 
 
 He can requite thee; for he knows the charms 5 S 
 
 That call fame on such gentle acts as these, 
 And he can spread thy name o'er lands and seas, 
 Whatever clime the sun's bright circle warms. 
 
 Lift not thy spear against the Muses' bower: 
 
 The great Emathian conqueror bid spare RH0< ^Br 10 
 The house of Pindarus, when temple and tower . 
 
 Went to the ground : and the repeated air 
 Of sad Electra's poet had the power 
 To save the Athenian walls from ruin bare. 
 
MILTON'S ENGLISH SONNETS 79 
 
 IV 
 
 To a Virtuous Young Lady 
 
 Lady, that in the prime of earliest youth 
 
 Wisely hast shunned the broad way and the green, 
 And with those few art eminently seen 
 That labour up the hill of heavenly Truth; 
 
 The better part with Mary and with Ruth 5 
 
 Chosen thou hast; and they that overween. 
 And at thy growing virtues fret their spleen, 
 No anger find in thee, but pity and ruth. ^ 
 
 Thy care is fixed, and zealously attends 
 
 To fill thy odorous lamp with deeds of light, 10 
 
 And hope that reaps not shame. Therefore be sure 
 
 Thou, when the Bridegroom with his feastful friends 
 Passes to bliss at the mid hour of night, 
 Hast gained thy entrance, virgin wise and pure. 
 
 V 
 
 To the Lady Margaret Ley 
 
 Daughter to that good Earl, once President 
 Of England's Council and her Treasury, 
 Who lived in both, unstained with gold or fee, 
 And left them both, more in himself content, 
 
 Till the sad breaking of that Parliament 
 Broke him, as that dishonest victory 
 At Chaeronea, fatal to liberty, 
 Killed with report that old man eloquent: 
 
 Though later born than to have known the days 
 
 Wherein your father flourished, yet by you, 10 
 
 Madam, methinks, I see him living yet; 
 
8o ' MILTON'S ENGLISH SONNETS 
 
 So well your words his noble virtues praise, 
 That all both judge you to relate them true, 
 And to possess them, honoured Margaret. 
 
 VI 
 
 On the Detraction which followed upon my Writing 
 certain Treatises 
 
 A book was writ of late, called Tetrachordon, ^ 
 ^y And woven close, both matter, form, and style; 
 , The subject new; it walked the town a while, 
 
 Numbering good intellects; now seldom pored on. 
 
 Cries the stall reader, " Bless us ! what a word on 5 
 
 A title-page is this !" And some in file 
 Stand spelling false, while one might walk to Mile- 
 End Green. Why is it harder, sirs, than Gordon, 
 
 Colkitto, or Macdonnel, or Galasp? 
 
 Those rugged names to our like mouths grow sleek, 10 
 That would have made Quintilian stare and gasp. ; 
 
 Thy age, like ours, O soul of Sir John Cheke, Gv^ 
 Hated not learning worse than toad or asp, - 
 When thou taught'st Cambridge, and King Edward, 
 Greek. 
 
 VII 
 
 On the Same 
 
 I did but prompt the age to quit their clogs 
 By the known rules of ancient liberty, 
 When straight a barbarous noise environs me 
 Of owls and cuckoos, asses, apes, and dogs : 
 
 As when those hinds that were transformed to frogs 5 
 Railed at Latona's twin-born progeny, 
 
MILTON'S ENGLISH SONNETS 8 1 
 
 ^^S^ 1 
 
 Which, after, held the sun and moon in fee. 
 
 But this is got by casting pearl to hogs, 
 That bawl for freedom in their senseless mood, 
 
 And still revolt when Truth would set them free. 
 
 Licence they mean when they cry Liberty; 
 For who loves that, must first be wise and good ; 
 
 But from that mark how far they rove we see, 
 
 For all this waste of wealth, and loss of blood. 
 
 VIII 
 
 To Mr. H. Lawes, on the Publishing of his Airs 
 
 Harry, whose tuneful and well-measured song 
 First taught our English music how to span 
 Words with just note and accent, not to scan 
 With Midas' ears, committing short and long, 
 
 Thy worth and skill exempts thee from the throng, 5 
 With praise enough for Envy to look wan; 
 To after-age thou shalt be writ the man, 
 That with smooth air couldst humour best our tongue. 
 
 Thou honour'st verse; and verse must lend her wing 
 To honour thee, the priest of Phoebus' quire, 10 
 
 That tun'st their happiest lines in hymn or story. 
 
 Dante shall give Fame leave to set thee higher 
 Than his Casella, v whom he wooed to sing, 
 Met in the milder shades of Purgatory. 
 
 IX 
 
 On the Religious Memory of Mrs. Catherine Thomson^ 
 my Christian Friend, deceased December 16, 1646. 
 
 When Faith and Love, which parted from thee never, 
 Had ripened thy just sou! to dwell with God, 
 
 (0134) 6 
 
82 MILTON'S ENGLISH SONNETS 
 
 Meekly thou didst resign this earthy load 
 
 Of death, called life; which us from life doth sever. 
 
 Thy works, and alms, and all thy good endeavour, 5 
 Staid not behind, nor in the grave were trod; 
 But, as Faith pointed with her golden rod, 
 Followed thee up to joy and bliss for ever. 
 
 Love led them on; and Faith, who knew them best 
 Thy handmaids, clad them o'er with purple beams 10 
 And azure wings, that up they flew so drest, 
 
 And speak the truth of thee on glorious themes 
 Before the Judge; who thenceforth bid thee rest, 
 And drink thy fill of pure immortal streams. 
 
 X 
 
 To the Lord General Fairfax 
 
 Fairfax, whose name in arms through Europe rings, 
 Filling each mouth with envy or with praise, 
 And all her jealous monarchs with amaze, 
 And rumours loud that daunt remotest kings; 
 
 Thy firm unshaken virtue ever brings 5 
 
 Victory home, though new rebellions raise 
 Their Hydra heads, and the false Norrti displays 
 Her broken league to^nf ffieir^lrpent wings! 
 
 O yet a nobler task awaits thy hand 
 
 (For what can war but endless war still breed?) 10 
 
 t Till truth and right from violence be freed, ** 
 v /And public faith cleared from the shameful brand? 
 Of public fraud In vain doth Valour bleed 
 While Avarice and Rapine share the land. 
 
MILTON'S ENGLISH SONNETS 83 
 
 XI 
 To the Lord General Cromwell 
 
 Cromwell, our chief of mep, who thrqugh a cloud 
 Not of war only, but (fetr^tfor^r^ef ' 
 Guided by faith and matchless fortitude, 
 To peace and truth thy glorious way hast ploughed, 
 
 And on the neck of crowned Fortune proud 5 
 
 Hast reared God's trophies, and His work pursued 
 While Dafwen stream, with blood of Scots imbrued, 
 And Dunbar field, resounds thy praises loud, 
 
 And Worcester's laureate wreath. Yet much remains 
 To conquer still;' Peace hath her victories v 10 
 
 JL u v;uiiL[uci mm, \jrcciuc; iJciui iici vujLurica > 10 
 
 No less renowned tnan War; new foes arise 
 Threatening to bind our souls'' with secular chains. ,. '.. 
 \ Help us to save free conscience from the paw 
 
 Of hireling wolves, whose Gospel is their maw. 
 
 XII 
 To Sir Harry Vane, the Younger 
 
 Vane, young in years, but in sage counsel old, 
 Than whom a better senator ne'er held 
 The helm of Rome, when gowns, not arms, repelled 
 The fierce Epirot and the African bold, 
 
 Whether to settle peace, or to unfold 5 
 
 The drift of hollow states hard to be spelled; 
 Then to advise how war may best upheld 
 Move by her two main nerves, iron and gold, 
 
 In all her equipage; besides to know 
 
 Both spiritual power and civil, what each means, 10 
 What severs each, thou hast learned, which few have 
 done. 
 
 
84 MILTON'S ENGLISH SONNETS 
 
 The bounds of either sword to thee we owe: 
 Therefore on thy firm hand Religion leans 
 In peace, and reckons thee her eldest son. 
 
 XIII 
 
 On the late Massacre in Piedmont 
 
 Avenge, O Lord, Thy slaughtered saints, whose bones 
 Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold; 
 Even them who kept Thy truth so pure of old, 
 When all our fathers worshipt stocks and stones. 
 
 Forget not : in Thy book record their groans 5 
 
 Who were Thy sheep, and in their ancient fold 
 Slain by the bloody Piedmontese, that rolled 
 Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans 
 
 The vales redoubled to the hills, and they 
 
 To heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow 10 
 O'er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway 
 
 The triple 'Tyrant; that from these may grow 
 A hundred-fold, who, having learned Thy way, 
 Early may fly the Babylonian woe. 
 
 XIV 
 
 On his Blindness 
 
 When I consider how my light is spent 
 
 Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, 
 And that one talent, which is death to hide, 
 Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent 
 
 To serve therewith my Maker, and present 5 
 
 My true account, lest He, returning, chide, 
 " Doth God exact day-labour, light denied? 1 '* 
 I fondly ask: but Patience, to prevent 
 
MILTON'S ENGLISH SONNETS 85 
 
 That murmur, soon replies: "God doth not need 
 Either man's work, or His own gifts; who best 10 
 Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best : His state 
 
 Is kingly; thousands at His bidding speed, 
 And post o'er land and ocean without rest: 
 They also serve who only stand and wait". 
 
 XV 
 
 To Mr. Lawrence 
 
 Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous son, 
 
 Now that the fields are dank, and ways are mire, 
 Where shall we sometimes meet, and by the fire 
 Help waste a sullen day, what may be won 
 
 : 
 
 From the hard season gaining? Time will run 5 
 
 On smoother, till Fvonms\einspire 
 The frozen earth, and clothe in fresh attire 
 The lily and rose, that neither sowed nor spun. 
 
 What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice, 
 
 Of Attic taste, with wine, whence we may rise 10 
 
 To hear the lute well touched, or artful voice 
 
 Warble immortal notes and Tuscan air? 
 
 He who of those delights can judge, and spare 
 To interpose them oft, is not unwise. 
 
 XVI 
 To Cyriack Skinner 
 
 ire, on the royal bench jrrx*r<if 
 
 Of British Them vith no mean applause, r 
 Pronounced, and in his volumes taught, our laws 
 Which others at their bar so often wrench, 
 
86 MILTON'S ENGLISH SONNETS 
 
 To-day deep thoughts resolve with me to drench 5 
 
 In mirth, that, after, no repenting draws; 
 Let Euclid rest, and Archimedes pause, 
 And what the Swede intend, and what the French. 
 
 To measure life learn thou betimes, and know 
 
 Toward solid good what leads the nearest way; 10 
 For other things mild Heaven a time ordains, 
 
 And disapproves that care, though wise in show, 
 That with superfluous burden loads the day, 
 And, when God sends a cheerful hour, refrains. 
 
 XVII 
 
 To the Same 
 
 Cyriack, this three years' day, these eyes, though clear. 
 
 To outward view, of blemish or of spot, 
 
 Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot; 
 
 Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear 
 Of sun, or moon, or star, throughout the year, 5 
 
 Or man, or woman. Yet I argue not 
 
 Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot 
 
 Of heart or hope; but still bear up and steer 
 Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask? 
 
 The conscience, friend, to have lost them overplied 10 
 
 In liberty's defence, my noble task, 
 Of which all Europe talks from side to side. 
 
 This thought might lead me through the world's vain 
 mask 
 
 Content, though blind, had I no better guide. 
 
MILTON'S ENGLISH SONNETS 87 
 
 XVIII 
 On his Deceased Wife 
 
 Methought I saw my late espoused saint 
 Brought to me, like 41cesfis, from the grave, 
 Whom Jove's greaPson to her glad husband gave, 
 Rescued from Death by force, though pale and faint. 
 
 Mine, as whom washed from spot of child-bed taint 5 
 Purification in the Old Law did save, 
 And such, as yet once more I trust to have 
 Full sight of her in heaven without restraint, 
 
 Came vested all in white, pure as her mind; 
 
 Her face was veiled; yet, to my fancied sight, 10 
 
 ^Lbve, sweetness, goodness, in her person shined 
 
 So clear, as in no face with more delight. 
 But, O ! as to embrace me she inclined, 
 1 waked; she fled; and day brought back my night. 
 
SAMSON AGONISTES 
 
 THE PERSONS 
 
 SAMSON. 
 
 MANOA, the Father of Samson. 
 DALILA, his Wife. 
 HARAPHA ofGath. 
 Public Officer. 
 Messenger. 
 Chorus of Danites. 
 
 -i,.. ..---A--- 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 
 Relieves me from my task of servile toil, 5 
 
 Daily in the common prison else enjoin'd me; 
 Where I, a prisoner chain'd, scarce freely draw 
 The air imprison'd also, close and damp, 
 Unwholesome draught. But here I feel amends, 
 The breath of heaven fresh-blowing, pure and sweet, 10 
 
 With day-spring born ; here leave me to respire. 
 This day a solemn feast the people hold 
 To Dagon, their sea-idol, and forbid 
 Laborious works; unwillingly this rest 
 
 Their superstition yields me; hence, with leave 15 
 
 Retiring from the popular noise, I seek 
 This unfrequented place to find some ease ; 
 Ease to the body some, none tc the mind 
 From restless thoughts, that, like a deadly swarm 
 Of hornets arnVd, no sooner found alone, 20 
 
 But rush upon me thronging, and present 
 
 88 
 
SAMSON AGONISTES gg 
 
 Times past, what once I was, and what am now. 
 O wherefore was my birth from Heaven foretold 
 Twice by an Angel, who at last, in sight 
 Of both my parents, all in flames ascended 25 
 
 From off the altar, where an offering burn'd, 
 As in a fiery column charioting 
 His god-like presence, and from some great act 
 Or benefit reveal'd to Abraham's race? 
 
 Why was my breeding order'd and prescribed 30 
 
 As of a person separate to God, 
 Designed for great exploits ; if I must die 
 Betray'd, captived, and both my eyes put out, 
 Made of my enemies the scorn and gaze, 
 To grind in brazen fetters under task 35 
 
 With this Heaven-gifted strength? O glorious strength, 
 Put to the labour of a beast, debased 
 Lower than bond-slave ! Promise was that I 
 Should Israel from Philistian yoke deliver; 
 Ask for this great deliverer now, and find him 40 
 
 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 
 
 Had been fulfill'd but through mine own default? 45 
 
 Whom have I to complain of but myself? 
 Who this high gift of strength committed to me, 
 In what part lodged, how easily bereft me, 
 Under the seal of silence could not keep, 
 But weakly to a woman must reveal it, 50 
 
 Overcome with importunity and tears. 
 O impotence of mind in body strong ! 
 But what is strength, without a double share 
 Of wisdom? Vast, unwieldy, burdensome, 
 Proudly secure, yet liable to fall 55 
 
 By weakest subtleties ; not made to rule, 
 But to subserve where wisdom bears command. 
 God, when he gave me strength, to show withal 
 HOW slight the gift was, hung it in my hair. 
 
90 SAMSON AGONISTES 
 
 But peace ! I must not quarrel with the will 6>0 
 
 Of highest dispensation, which herein 
 Haply had ends above my reach to know. 
 Suffices that to me strength is my bane, 
 And proves the source of all my miseries, 
 So many, and so huge, that each apart 65 
 
 Would ask a life to wail. But chief of all, w yW 
 O loss of sight, of thee I most complain ! /\ A A 
 Blind among enemies ! O worse than chains > 
 Dungeon, or beggary, or decrepit agel 
 
 Light, the prime work of God, to me is extinct, 70 
 
 And all her various objects of delight 
 AnnulPd, which might in part my grief have eased. 
 Inferior to the vilest now become 
 Of man or worm ; the vilest here excel me : 
 They creep, yet see ; I, dark in light, exposed 7$ 
 
 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 than half 
 O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon, So 
 
 Irrecoverably dark, total eclipse 
 Without all hope of day ! 
 O first-created beam, and thou great Word, 
 4 Let there be light, and light was over all ', 
 Why am I thus bereaved thy prime decree? 85 
 
 !The Sun to me is dark 
 And silent as the Moon 
 When she deserts the night, ^ rfjl^ ' 
 
 id in her vacant interlunar cave. * V 
 Since light so necessary is to life, . . < 90 
 
 And almost life itself, 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 the eye confined, 
 So obvious and so easy to be quench'd? 95 
 
 And not, as feeling, through all parts diffused, 
 That she might look at will through every pore? 
 
SAMSON AGONISTES 91 
 
 Then had I not been thus exiled from light 
 
 As in the land of darkness, yet in light 
 
 To live a life half dead, a living death, 100 
 
 And buried ; but (O yet more miserable !) 
 
 Myself my sepulchre, a moving grave. 
 
 Buried, yet not exempt 
 
 By privilege of death and burial 
 
 From worst of other evils, pains and wrongs ; 105 
 
 But made hereby obnoxious more 
 
 To all the miseries of life, 
 
 Life in captivity 
 
 Among inhuman foes. 
 
 But who are these? for with joint pace I hear no 
 
 The tread of many feet steering this way ; 
 
 Perhaps my enemies, who come to stare 
 
 At my affliction, and perhaps to insult 
 
 Their daily practice to afflict me more. 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 Chorus. This, this is he; softly awhile; 115 
 
 Let us not break in upon him. 
 O change beyond report, thought, or belief! 
 See how he lies at random, carelessly diffused, 
 With languish'd head unpropp'd, 
 
 As one past hope, abandon'd, 120 
 
 And by himself given over ; 
 In slavish habit, ill-fitted weeds 
 O'er-worn and soil'd. 
 
 Or do my eyes misrepresent ? Can this be he, 
 That heroic, that renown' d, 125 
 
 Irresistible Samson? whom unarm'd 
 
 No strength of man, or fiercest wild beast, could withstand ; 
 Who tore the lion, as the lion tears the kid ; 
 Ran on embattled armies clad in iron, 
 
 And weaponless himself, 130 
 
 Made arms ridiculous, useless the forgery 
 Of brazen shield and spear, the hammered cuirass, 
 /Chalybean-temper'd steel, and frock of mail 
 
' SAMSON AGONISTES 
 
 veU 
 
 Adamantean proof: 
 
 But safest he who stood aloof, 135 
 
 When insupportably his foot advanced, 
 In scorn of their proud arms and warlike tools, 
 Spurn'd them to death by troops. The bold Ascalonite 
 Fled from his lion ramp, old warriors turn'd 
 Their plated backs under his heel ; 140 
 
 Or groveling soil'd their crested helmets in the dust. 
 Then with what trivial weapon came to hand, 
 The jaw of a dead ass, his sword of bone, 
 A thousand foreskins fell, the flower of Palestine, 
 In Ramath-lechi, famous to this day : 145 
 
 Then by main force pull'd up, and on his shoulders bore 
 The gates of Azza, post and massy bar, 
 Up to the hill by Hebron, seat of giants old 
 No journey of a Sabbath-day, and loaded so 
 Like whom the Gentiles feign to bear up Heaven. 1 50 
 
 Which shall I first bewail, 
 Thy bondage or lost sight, 
 Prison within prison 
 Inseparably dark? 
 
 Thou art become (O worst imprisonment!) 15$ 
 
 The dungeon of thyself ; thy soul 
 
 (Which men enjoying sight oft without cause complain) 
 Imprison'd now indeed, 
 In real darkness of the body dwells, 
 
 Shut up from outward light 1 60 
 
 To incorporate with gloomy night; 
 For inward light, alas ! 
 Puts forth no visual beam. 
 O mirror of our fickle state, 
 
 Since man on earth, unparallePd ! 165 
 
 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 falPn. 
 For him I reckon not in high estate 170 
 
 Whom long descent of birth (* 
 
SAMSON AGONISTES 93 
 
 Or the sphere of fortune raises ; 
 
 But thee, whose strength, while virtue was her mate, 
 
 Might have subdued the Earth, 
 
 Universally crown'd with highest praises. 175 
 
 Samson. I hear the sound of words; their sense the air 
 Dissolves unjointed ere it reach my ear. 
 
 Chorus. He speaks; let us draw nigh. Matchless in might, 
 
 /The glory late of Israel, now the grief! 
 We come, thy friends and neighbours not unknown, 180 
 
 From Eshtaol and Zora's fruitful vale, 
 To visit or bewail thee ; or, if better, 
 Counsel or consolation we may bring, 
 Salve to thy sores ; apt words have power to suage 
 The tumours of a troubled mind, 185 
 
 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' 
 Bear in their superscription (of the most 190 
 
 I would be understood). In prosperous days 
 They swarm, but in adverse withdraw their head, 
 Not to be found, though sought. Ye see, O friends, 
 How many evils have enclosed me round ; 
 Yet that which was the worst now least afflicts me, 195 
 
 Blindness ; for had I sight, confused with shame, 
 How could I once look up, or heave the head, 
 Who, like a foolish pilot, have shipwrack'd /^ifcA^ ^-^ 
 My vessel trusted to me from above, 
 
 Gloriously rigg'd, and for a word, a tear, 200 
 
 Fool ! have divulged 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 
 Are come upon him his deserts'? Yet why? 205 
 
 Immeasurable strength they might behold 
 In me ; of wisdom nothing more than mean. 
 This with the other should, at least, have pair'd ; 
 These two, proportioned ill, drove me transverse. 
 
94 SAMSON AGONISTES 
 
 Chorus. Tax not divine disposal. Wisest men 210 
 
 Have err'd, and by bad women been deceived ; 
 And shall again, pretenct they ne'er so wise. 
 Deject not, then, so overmuch thyself, 
 Who hast of sorrow thy full load besides. 
 Yet, truth to say, I oft have heard men wonder 215 
 
 Why thou should'st wed Philistian women rather 
 Than of thine own tribe fairer, or as fair, 
 At least of thy own nation, and as noble. 
 
 Samson. The first I saw at Tirana, and she pleased 
 Me, not my parents, that I sought to wed 220 
 
 The daughter of an infidel : they knew not 
 That what I motion'd was of God ; I knew 
 From intimate impulse, and therefore urged 
 The marriage on, that by occasion hence 
 I might begin Israel's deliverance, 225 
 
 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 m the vale of Sorec, Dalila, 
 
 That specious monster, my accom^lishM ..snaje, 230 
 
 I thought it lawful from my former act, 
 And the same end, still watching to oppress 
 Israel's oppressors. Of what now I suffer 
 She was not the prime cause, but I myself; 
 Who, vanquish'd with a peal of words (O weakness !), 235 
 Gave up my fort of silence to a woman. 
 
 Chorus. In seeking just occasion to provoke 
 The Philistine, thy country's enemy, 
 Thou never wast remiss, I bear thee witness : 
 Yet Israel still serves with all his sons. 240 
 
 Samson. That fault I take not on me, but transfer 
 On Israel's governors and heads of tribes, 
 Who seeing those great acts which God had done 
 Singly by me against their conquerors, 
 
 Acknowledged not, or not at all consider'd 245 
 
 Deliverance offer'd. I on the other side 
 Used no ambition to commend my deeds; 
 
SAMSON AGONISTES 95 
 
 The deeds themselves, though -mute, spoke loud the doer. 
 
 But they persisted deaf, and would not seem 
 
 To count them things worth notice, till at length 250 
 
 Their lords, the Philistines, with gather'd powers 
 
 Entered Judea, seeking me, who then 
 
 Safe to the rock of Etham was retired, 
 
 Not flying, but fore-casting in what place 
 
 To set upon them, what advantaged best. 255 
 
 Meanwhile the men of Judah, to prevent 
 
 The harass of their land, beset me round ; 
 
 I willingly on some conditions came 
 
 Into their hands, and they as gladly yield me 
 
 To the Uncircumcised a welcome prey, 260 
 
 Bound with two cords. But cords to me were threads 
 
 Touch'd with the flame : on their whole host I flew 
 
 Unarmed, and with a trivial weapon felFd 
 
 Their choicest youth ; they only lived who fled. 
 
 Had Judah that day join'd, or one whole tribe, 265 
 
 They had by this possess'd the towers of Gath, 
 
 And lorded over them whom they now serve. 
 
 But what more oft in nations grown corrupt, 
 
 And by their vices brought to servitude, 
 
 Than to love bondage more than liberty, 270 
 
 Bondage with ease than strenuous liberty ; 
 
 And to despise, or envy, or suspect 
 
 Whom God hath of his special favour raised 
 
 As their deliverer? If he aught begin, 
 
 How frequent to desert him, and at last 275 
 
 To heap ingratitude on worthiest deeds ! 
 
 Chorus. Thy words to my remembrance bring 
 How Succoth and the fort of Penuel 
 Their great deliverer contemn'd, 
 
 The matchless Gideoja in pursuit 280 
 
 Of Madian and her vanquished kings : 
 And how ingrateful Ephraim 
 Had dealt with ^eghtljaj who by argument, 
 Not worse than by his shield and spear, 
 Defended Israel from the Ammonite, 285 
 
96 SAMSON AGONISTES 
 
 t*\ 
 
 Had not his prowess quell'd their pride 1/^P I ^ *> ' 
 In that sore battle when so many died 
 Without reprieve, adjudged to death, 
 For want of well pronouncing Shibboleth. 
 
 Samson. Of such examples add me to the roll ; 290 
 
 Me. easily indeed mine may neglect, 
 But God's proposed deliverance not so. 
 
 Chorus. Just are the ways of God, \ \V ^> *&*** 
 
 And justifiable to men ; 
 
 Unless there be who think not God at all : 295 
 
 If any be, they walk obscure ; 
 For of such doctrine never was there school, 
 But the heart of the fool, 
 And no man therein doctor but himself. 
 
 Yet more there be who doubt his ways not just, 300 
 
 As to his own edicts found contradicting ; 
 Then give the reins to wandering thought, 
 Regardless of his glory's diminution, 
 Till, by their own perplexities involved, 
 They ravel more, still less resolved, 301; 
 
 But never find self-satisfying solution. 
 
 As if they would confine the Interminable, 
 And tie him to his own prescript, 
 Who made our laws to bind us, not himself, 
 And hath full right to exempt 310 
 
 Whomso it pleases him by choice 
 From national obstriction, without taint 
 Of sin, or legal debt ; 
 For with his own laws he can best dispense. 
 
 He would not else, who never wanted means, 315 
 
 Nor in respect of the enemy just cause, 
 To set his people free, 
 Have prompted this heroic Nazarite, 
 Against his vow of strictest purity, 
 
 To seek in marriage that fallacious bride, 320 
 
 Unclean, unchaste. 
 
 Down, Reason, then ; at least, vain reasonings down ; 
 Though Reason here aver 
 
SAMSON AGONISTES 97 
 
 That moral verdict quits her of unclean : 
 
 Unchaste was subsequent ; her stain, not his. 325 
 
 But see ! here comes thy reverend sire, 
 With careful step, locks white as down, 
 Old Manoa: advise 
 Forthwith how thou ought'st to receive him. 
 
 Samson. Ay me, another inward grief, awaked 330 
 
 With mention of that name, renews the assault. 
 
 MANOA. 
 
 Manoa. Brethren and men of Dan (for such ye seem, 
 Though in this uncouth place), if old respect, 
 As I suppose, towards your once gloried friend, 
 My son, now captive, hither hath informed 335 
 
 Your younger feet, while mine, oast back with age, 
 Came lagging after, say if he be here. 
 
 Chorus. As signal now in low dejected state, 
 As erst in highest, behold him where he lies. 
 
 Manoa. O miserable change ! Is this the man, 340 
 
 That invincible Samson, far renown'd, 
 The dread of Israel's foes, who with a strength 
 Equivalent to angels' walk'd their streets, 
 None offering fight ; who, single combatant, 
 Duell'd their armies rank'd in proud array, 345 
 
 Himself an army now unequal match 
 To save himself against a coward arm'd 
 At one spear's length ? O ever-failing trust 
 In mortal strength ! and, oh, what not in man 
 Deceivable and vain ! nay, what thing good 350 
 
 Pray'd for, but often proves our woe, our bane ? 
 I pray'd for children, and thought barrenness 
 In wedlock a reproach ; I gain'd a son, 
 And such a son as all men hail'd me happy : 
 Who would be now a father in my stead? 355 
 
 O wherefore did God grant me my request, 
 And as a blessing with such pomp adorn'd? 
 Why are his gifts desirable, to tempt 
 Our earnest prayers then, given with solemn hand 
 
98 SAMSON AGONISTES 
 
 As graces, draw a scorpion's tail behind? 360 
 
 For this did the Angel twice descend? for this 
 
 Ordain'd thy nurture holy, as of a plant 
 
 Select and sacred? glorious for a while, 
 
 The miracle of men : then in an hour 
 
 Ensnared, assaulted, overcome, led bound, 365 
 
 Thy foes' derision, captive, poor, and blind, 
 
 Into a dungeon thrust, to work with slaves ! 
 
 Alas ! methinks whom God hath chosen once 
 
 To worthiest deeds, if he through frailty err, 
 
 He should not so o'erwhelm, and as a thrall, 370 
 
 Subject him to so foul indignities, 
 
 Be it but for honour's sake of former deeds. 
 
 Samson. Appoint not heavenly disposition, fathe.. 
 Nothing of all these evils hath befall'n me 
 But justly ; I myself have brought them on, 375 
 
 Sole author I, sole cause : if aught seem vile, 
 As vile hath been my folly, who have profaned 
 The mystery of God, giv'n me under pledge 
 Of vow, and have betray^ it to a woman, 
 A Canaanite, my faithless enemy. 380 
 
 This well I knew, nor was at all surprised, 
 But warn'd by oft experience. Did not she 
 Of Timna first betray me, and reveal 
 The secret wrested from me in her highth 
 Of nuptial love profess'd, carrying it straight 385 
 
 To them who had corrupted her, my spies 
 And rivals? In this other was there found 
 More faith? who also in her prime of love, 
 Spousal embraces, vitiated with gold, 
 
 Though offer'd only, by the scent conceived 390 
 
 Her spurious first-born, Treason against me. 
 Thrice she assay'd, with flattering prayers and sighs, 
 And amorous reproaches, to win from me 
 My capital secret, in what part my strength 
 Lay stored, in what part summ'd, that she might know ; 395 
 Thrice I deluded her, ana turned to sport 
 Her importunity, each time perceiving 
 
SAMSON AGONISTES 
 
 99 
 
 How openly ana with what impudence 
 She purposed to betray me ; and (which was worse 
 Than undissembled hate) with what contempt 400 
 
 She sought to make me traitor to myself. 
 Yet the fourth time, when mustering all her wiles, 
 With blandish'd parleys, feminine assaults, 
 Tongue-batteries, she surceased not day nor night 
 To storm me over-watch'd, and wearied out, 405 
 
 At times when men seek most repose and rest, 
 I yielded, and unlock'd her all my heart ; 
 Who, with a grain of manhood well resolved, 
 Might easily have shook off all her snares: 
 But foul effeminacy held me yoked 410 
 
 Her bond-slave. O indignity, O blot 
 To honour and religion ! servile mind, 
 Rewarded well with servile punishment ! 
 -The base degree to which I now am fall'n, 
 These rags, this grinding, is not yet so base 41 ^ 
 
 As was my former servitude, ignoble, 
 Unmanly, ignominious, infamous, 
 True slavery, and that blindness worse than this, 
 That saw not how degenerately I served. 
 
 Manoa. I cannot praise thy marriage-choices, son, 420 
 Rather approved them not ; but thou didst plead 
 Divine impulsion prompting how thou mightst 
 Find some occasion to infest our foes. 
 I state not that ; this I am sure our foes 
 Found soon occasion thereby to make thee 425 
 
 Their captive, and their triumph ; thou the sooner 
 Temptation found'st, or over-potent charms 
 To violate the sacred trust of silence 
 Deposited within thee ; which to have kept 
 Tacit, was in thy power. True ; and thou bear'st 430 
 
 Enough, and more, the burden of that fault ; 
 Bitterly hast thou paid, and still art paying 
 That rigid score. A worse thing yet remains ; 
 This day the Philistines a popular feast 
 Here celebrate in Gaza, and proclaim 435 
 
100 SAMSON AGONISTES 
 
 Great pomp, and sacrifice, and praises loud 
 
 To Dagon, as their god who hath delivered 
 
 Thee, Samson, bound and blind, into their hands 
 
 Them out of thine, who slew'st them many a slain. 
 
 So Dagon shall be magnified, and God, 440 
 
 Besides whom is no God, compared with idols, 
 
 Disglorified, blasphemed, and had in scorn 
 
 By the idolatrous rout amidst their wine ; 
 
 Which to have come to pass by means of thee, 
 
 Samson, of all thy sufferings think the heaviest, 445 
 
 Of all reproach the most with shame that ever 
 
 Could have befall'n thee and thy father's house. 
 
 Samson. Father, I do acknowledge and confess 
 That I this honour, I this pomp have brought 
 To Dagon, and advanced his praises high 450 
 
 Among the heathen round ; to God have brought 
 Dishonour, obloquy, and oped the mouths 
 Of idolists and atheists ; have brought scandal 
 To Israel, diffidence of God, and doubt 
 In feeble hearts, prepense enough before 455 
 
 To waver, or fall off and join with idols ; 
 Which is my chief affliction, shame and sorrow, 
 The anguish of my soul, that suffers not 
 Mine eye to harbour sleep, or thoughts to rest. 
 This only hope relieves me, that the strife 460 
 
 With me hath end ; all the contest is now 
 'Twixt God and Dagon. Dagon hath presumed, 
 Me overthrown, to enter lists with God, 
 His deity comparing and preferring 
 
 Before the God of Abraham. He, be sure, 465 
 
 Will not connive, or linger, thus provoked, 
 But will arise, and his great name assert : 
 Dagon must stoop, and shall ere long receive 
 Such a discomfit, as shall quite despoil him 
 Of all these boasted trophies won on me, 470 
 
 And with confusion blank his worshippers. 
 
 Man. With cause this hope relieves thee; and these words 
 I as a prophecy receive ; for God 
 
SAMSON AGONISTES IO1 
 
 (Nothing more certain) will not long defer 
 
 To vindicate the glory of his name 475 
 
 Against all competition, nor will long 
 
 Endure it doubtful whether God be Lord, 
 
 Or Dagon.1 But for thee what shall be done? 
 
 Thou must not in the meanwhile, here forgot, 
 
 Lie in this miserable loathsome plight, 480 
 
 Neglected. I already have made way 
 
 To some Philistian lords, with whom to treat 
 
 About thy ransom. Well they may by this 
 
 Have satisfied their utmost of revenge 
 
 By pains and slaveries, worse than death, inflicted 485 
 
 On thee, who now no more canst do them harm. 
 
 Samson. Spare that proposal, father, spare the trouble 
 Of that solicitation ; let me here, 
 As I deserve, pay on my punishment, 
 
 And expiate, if possible, my crime, 49 
 
 Shameful garrulity. To have reveaPd 
 Secrets of men, the secrets of a friend, 
 How heinous had the fact been, how deserving 
 Contempt, and scorn of all to be excluded 
 All friendship, and avoided as a blab, 495 
 
 The mark of fool set on his front ! But I 
 God's counsel have not kept, his holy secret 
 Presumptuously have publish'd, impiously, 
 Weakly at least, and shamefully ; a sin 
 
 That Gentiles in their parables condemn 500 
 
 To their Abyss and horrid pains confined. 
 
 Manoa. Be penitent, and for thy fault contrite, 
 But act not in thy own affliction, son : 
 Repent the sin, but if the punishment 
 
 Thou canst avoid, self-preservation bids; 55 
 
 Or the execution leave to high disposal, 
 And let another hand, not thine, exact 
 Thy penal forfeit from thyself. Perhaps 
 God will relent, and quit thee all his debt ; 
 Who ever more approves and more accepts 510 
 
 (Best pleased with humble and filial submission) 
 
102 SAMSON AGONISTES 
 
 Him who, imploring mercy, sues for life, 
 
 Than who, self-rigorous, chooses death as due ; 
 
 Which argues over-just, and self-displeased, 
 
 For self-offence, more than for God offended. 515 
 
 Reject not, then, what offer'd means who know 
 
 But God hath set before us to return thee 
 
 Home to thy country and his sacred house, 
 
 Where thou mayst bring thy offerings, to avert 
 
 His further ire, with prayers and vows renew'd. 520 
 
 Samson. His pardon I implore ; but as for life, 
 To what end should I seek it? When in strength 
 All mortals I excell'd, and great in hopes, 
 With youthful courage and magnanimous thoughts 
 Of birth from Heaven foretold and high exploits, 525 
 
 Full of divine instinct, after some proof 
 Of acts indeed heroic, far beyond 
 The sons of Anak, famous now and blazed, 
 Fearless of danger, like a petty god 
 
 I walked about, admired of all, and dreaded 530 
 
 On hostile ground, none daring my affront. 
 Then, swoll'n with pride, into the snare I fell 
 Of fair, fallacious looks, venereal trains, "*tfyjursM^$ 
 Soften'd with pleasure and voluptuous life, 
 At length to lay my head and hallow'd pledge 535 
 
 Of all my strength in the lascivious lap 
 Of a deceitful concubine, who shore me, 
 Like a tame wether, all my precious fleece, 
 Then turn'd me out ridiculous, despoil'd, 
 Shav'n, and disarm'd among my enemies. 540 
 
 Chorus. Desire of wine and all delicious drinks, 
 Which many a famous warrior overturns, 
 Thou couldst repress ; nor did the dancing ruby, 
 Sparkling out-pour'd, the flavour, or the smell, 
 Or taste that cheers the heart of gods and men, 545 
 
 Allure thee from the cool crystalline stream. 
 
 Samson. Wherever fountain or fresh current flowed 
 Against the eastern ray, translucent, pure 
 With touch ethereal of Heaven's fiery rod, 
 
SAMSON AGONISTES 103 
 
 <A^tcr 
 
 1 drank, from the clear milky juice allaying 550 
 
 Thirst, and refreshed : nor envied 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, 
 When God with these forbidd'n made choice to rear 555 
 His mighty champion, strong above compare, 
 Whose drink was only from the liquid brook ! 
 
 Samson. But what avail'd this temperance, not complete 
 Against another object more enticing? 
 
 What boots it at one gate to make defence, 560 
 
 And at another to let in the foe, 
 Effeminately vanquished? by which means, 
 Now blind, dishearten r d, shamed, dishonour^, quell'd, 
 To what can I be useful? wherein serve 
 
 My nation, and the work from Heaven imposed? 565 
 
 Btttrto sit idle on the household hearth, 
 A burdenous drone ; to visitants a gaze, 
 Or pitied object ; these redundant locks, 
 Robustious to no purpose, clustering down, 
 Vain monument of strength ; till length of years 570 
 
 And sedentary numbness craze my limbs 
 To a contemptible old age obscure. 
 Here rather let me drudge, and earn my bread, 
 Till vermin, or the draff of servile food, 
 Consume me, and oft-invocated death 575 
 
 Hasten the welcome end of all my pains. 
 
 Manoa. Wilt thou then serve the Philistines with that gift 
 . Which was expressly given thee to annoy them? 
 Better at home lie bed-rid, not only idle, 
 Inglorious, unemploy'd, with age outworn. 580 
 
 But God, who caused a fountain at thy prayer 
 From the dry ground to spring, thy thirst to allay 
 After the brunt of battle, can as easy 
 
 Cause light again within thy eyes to spring, V* &jJ* 
 
 Wherewith to serve him better than thou hast. 585 
 
 And I persuade me so: why else this strength ^^ 
 Miraculous yet remaining in those locks? 
 
104 SAMSON AGONISTES 
 
 His might continues in thee not for naught, 
 Nor shall his wondrous gifts be frustrate thus. 
 
 Samson. All otherwise to me my thoughts portend 590 
 That these dark orbs no more shall treat with light, 
 Nor the other light of life continue long, 
 But yield to double darkness nigh at hand : 
 So much I feel my genial spirits droop, 
 
 My hopes all flat ; Nature within me seems 595 
 
 In all her functions weary of herself; 
 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 
 From anguish of the mind and humours black 600 
 
 That mingle with thy fancy e I however 
 Must not omit a father's timely care 
 To prosecute the means of thy deliverance, 
 By ransom or how else : meanwhile be calm. 
 And healing words from these thy friends admit. {Exit. 605 
 
 Samson. 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 610 
 
 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, 615 
 
 Though void of corporal sense ! 
 
 My griefs not only pain me 
 As a lingering disease, 
 But, finding no redress, ferment and rage ; 
 Nor less than wounds immedicable 620 
 
 Rankle, and fester, and gangrene, 
 To black mortification. 
 
 Thoughts my tormentors, arm'd with deadly stings, 
 Mangle my apprehensive tenderest parti 
 Exasperate, exulcerate, and raise 625 
 
SAMSON AGONISTES 10$ 
 
 Dire inflammation which no cooling herb 
 
 Or medicinal 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 : 630 
 
 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. 635 
 
 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 : 640 
 
 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 645 
 
 The subject of their cruelty or scorn. 
 
 Nor am I in the list of them that hope; 
 
 fHopeless are all my evils, all remediless ; . _ j 
 
 j This one prayer yet remains, might I be heard, 
 j No long petition speedy death, I -P * ' ^ 0^ ^ 
 
 L The close of all my miseries, and the balm. 
 Chorus. Many are the sayings of the wise, 
 
 In ancient and in modern books enroll'd, 
 
 Extolling patience as the truest fortitude, 
 
 And to the bearing well of all calamities, 655 
 
 All chances incident to man'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 660 
 
 Little prevails, or rather seems a lune 
 
 Harsh, and of dissonant mood from his complaint, 
 
 Unless he feel within 
 
106 SAMSON AGONISTES 
 
 Some source of consolation from above ; 
 
 Secret refreshings that repair his strength, 665 
 
 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, 670 
 
 Not evenly, as thou rulest 
 
 The angelic orders, and inferior creatures mute, 
 Irrational and brute? 
 Nor do I name of men the common rout, 
 That wandering loose about, 675 
 
 Grow up and perish as the summer-fly, 
 Heads without name, no more remembered ; 
 But such as thou hast solemnly elected, 
 With gifts and graces eminently adorn'd 
 To some great work, thy glory, 680 
 
 And people's safety, which in part they effect : 
 Yet towards these thus dignified, thou oft 
 Amidst their highth of noon, 
 
 Changest thy countenance and thy hand, with no regard 
 Of highest favours past 685 
 
 From thee on them, or them to thee of service. 
 
 Nor only dost degrade them, or remit 
 To life obscured, whjch were a fair dismission, 
 But throw'st them lower than thou didst exalt them high 
 Unseemly falls in human eye, 690 
 
 Too grievous for the trespass or omission ; 
 Oft leav'st them to the hostile sword 
 Of heathen and profane, their carcasses 
 To dogs and fowls a prey, or else captived ; 
 Or to the unjust tribunals, under change of times, 695 
 
 And condemnation of the ungrateful 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 ; 700 
 
 Though not disordinate, yet causeless suffering 
 
SAMSON AGONISTES IO7 
 
 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 champion, 705 
 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 >* 7*0 
 Female of sex it seems, 
 That so bedeck'd, ornate, and gay, 
 Comes this way sailing 
 
 Of Tarsus, bound for the isles I 7*5 
 
 *&* Of Javan or Gadire, * CUOJiSL^ 
 
 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 7 2 
 
 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. 724 
 
 Samson. My wife ! my traitress ! let her not come near me. 
 
 Chorus. 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 : 73 
 
 But now again she makes address to speak. 
 
 DALILA. 
 
 Dalila. With doubtful feet and wavering resolution 
 I came, still dreading thy displeasure, Samson, 
 Which to have merited, without excuse, 
 I cannot but acknowledge. Yet, if tears 735 
 
 May expiate (though the fact more evil drew 
 In the perverse event than I foresaw), 
 
108 SAMSON AGONISTES 
 
 My penance hath not slacken'd, though my pardon 
 
 No way assured. But conjugal affection, 
 
 Prevailing over fear and timorous doubt, 740 
 
 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 745 
 
 Though late, yet in some part to recompense 
 
 My rash but more unfortunate misdeed. 
 
 Samson. Out, out, hyaena ! These are thy wonted arts, 
 And arts of every woman false like thee, 
 To break all faith, all vows, deceive, betray ; 750 
 
 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, 75$ 
 
 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 760 
 
 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. 765 
 
 Dalila. Yet hear me, Samson ; not that I endeavour 
 To lessen or extenuate my offence, 
 But that on the other side if it be weighed 
 By itself, with aggravations not surcharged, 
 Or else with just allowance counterpoised, 770 
 
 I may, if possible, thy pardon find 
 The easier towards me, or thy hatred less. 
 First granting, as I do, it was ?, weakness 
 Jn me, but incident to all our sex, 
 Curiosity, inquisitive, importune 775 
 
SAMSON AGONISTES 109 
 
 Of secrets, then with like infirmity 
 
 To publish them both common female faults : 
 
 Was it not weakness also to make known 
 
 For importunity, that is for naught, 
 
 Wherein consisted all thy strength and safety? 780 
 
 To what I did thou show'dst me first the way. 
 
 But I to enemies reveal' d, and should not ! 
 
 Nor shouldst thou have trusted that to woman's frailty : 
 
 Ere I to thee, thou to thyself wast cruel. 
 
 Let weakness then with weakness come to parle, 785 
 
 So near related, or the same of kind ; 
 
 Thine forgive mine ; that men may censure thine 
 
 The gentler, if severely thou exact not 
 
 More strength from me than in thyself was found. 
 
 And what if love, which thou interpret'st hate, 790 
 
 The jealousy of love, powerful of sway 
 
 Inhuman hearts, nor less in mine towards thee, 
 
 Caused what I did? I saw thee mutable 
 
 Of fancy ; fear'd lest one day thou would'st leave me 
 
 As her at Timna ; sought by all means, therefore, 795 
 
 How to endear, and hold thee to me firmest : 
 
 No better way I saw than by importuning 
 
 To learn thy secrets, get into my power 
 
 Thy key of strength and safety. Thou wilt say, 
 
 Why then reveal'd? I was assured by those 800 
 
 Who tempted me, that nothing was design' d 
 
 Against thee but safe custody and hold : 
 
 That made for me ; I knew that liberty 
 
 Would draw thee forth to perilous enterprises, 
 
 While I at home sat full of cares and fears, 805 
 
 Wailing thy absence in my widow'd bed ; 
 
 Here I should still enjoy thee, day and night, 
 
 Mine and love's prisoner, not the Philistines', 
 
 Whole to myself, unhazarded abroad, 
 
 Fearless at home of partners in my love. 810 
 
 These reasons in love's law have pass'd for good, 
 
 Though fond and reasonless to some perhaps ; 
 
 And love hath oft, well meaning wrought much woe, 
 
1 10 SAMSON AGONISTES 
 
 Yet always pity or pardon hath obtain' d. 
 
 Be not unlike all others, not austere 815 
 
 As thou art strong, inflexible as steel. 
 
 If thou in strength all mortals dost exceed, 
 
 In uncompassionate anger do not so. 
 Samson. How cunningly the sorceress displays 
 
 Her own transgressions, to upbraid me mine ! 820 
 
 That malice, not repentance, brought thee hither 
 
 ^y this appears. I gave, thou say'st, the example 
 led the way ; bitter reproach, but true ; 
 
 I to myself was false ere thou to me. 
 
 jfeuch pardon, therefore, as I give my folly 825 
 
 iuake to thy wicked deed ; which when thou seest 
 
 Impartial, self-severe, inexorable, 
 
 Thou wilt renounce thy seeking, and much rather 
 
 Confess it feign'd. Weakness is thy excuse, 
 
 And I believe it weakness to resist 830 
 
 Philistian gold : if weakness may excuse, 
 
 What murderer, what traitor, parricide, k^wA! 
 
 Incestuous, sacrilegious, but may plead it? 
 
 All wickedness is weakness : that plea, therefore, 
 
 With God or man will gain thee no remission. 83*: 
 
 But love constraint thee ! Call it furious rage 
 
 To satisfy thy lust : love seeks to have love ; 
 
 My love how couldst thou hope, who took'st the way 
 
 To raise in me inexpiable hate, 
 
 Knowing, as needs I must, by thee betray'd? 
 
 In vain thou strivest to cover shame with shame, 
 
 Or by evasions thy crime uncover'st more. 
 Dalila. Since thou determinest weakness for no plea 
 
 In man or woman, though to thy own condemning, 
 
 Hear what assaults I had, what snares besides, 845 
 
 What sieges girt me round, ere I consented ; 
 
 Which might have awed the best-resolved of men, 
 
 The constantest, to have yielded without blame. 
 
 It was not gold, as to my charge thou lay'st, 
 
 That wrought with me : thou know'st the magistrates 850 
 
 And princes of my country came in person, 
 
SAMSON AGONISTES III 
 
 Solicited, commanded, threaten'd, urged, 
 Adjured by all the bonds of civil duty 
 And of religion ; press'd how just it was, 
 How honourable, how glorious, to entrap 
 A common enemy, who had destroy'd 
 Such numbers of our nation : and the priest - 
 Was not behind, but ever at my ear, 
 Preaching how meritorious with the gods 
 It would be to ensnare an irreligious 860 
 
 Dishonourer of Dagon. What had I 
 To oppose against such powerful arguments ? 
 Only my love of thee held long debate, 
 And combated in silence all these reasons 
 With hard contest. At length, that grounded maxim, 865 
 So rife and celebrated in the mouths 
 Of wisest men that to the public good 
 Private respects must yield, with grave authority 
 Took full possession of me and prevail'd ; 
 Virtue, as I thought, truth, duty, so enjoining. 870 
 
 Samson. I thought where all thy circling wiles would end- 
 In feign'd religion, smooth hypocrisy ! 
 But had thy love, still odiously pretended, 
 Been, as it ought, sincere, it would have taught thee 
 Far other reasonings, brought forth other deeds. 875 
 
 I, before all the daughters of my tribe 
 And of my nation, chose thee from among 
 My enemies, loved thee, as too well thou knew'st, 
 Too well ; unbosom'd all my secrets to thee, 
 Not out of levity, but overpower'd 880 
 
 By thy request, who could deny thee nothing ; 
 Yet now am judged an enemy. Why, then, 
 Didst thou at first receive me for thy husband, 
 Then, as since then, thy ccuntry's foe profess'd? 
 Being once a wife, for me thou wast to leave 885 
 
 Parents and country ; nor was I their subject, 
 Nor under their protection, but my own ; 
 Thou mine, not theirs. If aught against my life 
 Thy country sought of thee, it sought unjustly, 
 
H2 SAMSON AGON1STES 
 
 Against the law of nature, law of nations ; gcjo, 
 
 No more thy country, but an impious crew 
 Of men conspiring to uphold their state 
 By worse than hostile deeds, violating the ends 
 For which our country is a name so dear ; 
 Not therefore to be obeyed. But zeal moved thee 895 
 
 To please thy gods thou didst it ! Gods unable 
 To acquit themselves and prosecute their foes 
 But by ungodly deeds, the contradiction 
 Of their own deity, gods cannot be ; 
 
 Less therefore to be pleased, obe/d, or fear'd. 900 
 
 I These false pretexts and varnish'd colours failing 
 Bare in thy guilt how foul must thou appear ! 
 x Dalila. In argument with men a woman ever 
 Goes by the worse, whatever be her cause. 
 
 Samson. For want of words, no doubt, or lack of breath ! 
 Witness when I was worried with thy peals. 906 
 
 Dalila. I was a fool, too rash, and quite mistaken 
 In what I thought would have succeeded best. 
 Let me obtain forgiveness of thee, Samson ; 
 Afford me place to show what recompense 910 
 
 Towards thee I intend for what I have misdone, 
 Misguided ; only what remains past cure 
 Bear not too sensibly, nor still insist 
 To afflict thyself in vain ; though sight be lost, 
 Life yet hath many solaces, enjoy'd 915 
 
 Where other senses want not their delights, 
 At home, in leisure and domestic ease, 
 Exempt from many a care and chance to which 
 Eyesight exposes daily men abroad. 
 
 I to the lords will intercede, not doubting 920 
 
 Their favourable ear, that I may fetch thee 
 From forth this loathsome prison-house, to abide 
 With me, where my redoubled love and care, 
 With nursing diligence, to me glad office, 
 May ever tend about thee to old age, 92* 
 
 With all things grateful cheer'd, and so supplied 
 That what by me thou hast lost th >u least shall miss. 
 
SAMSON AGONISTEc II3 
 
 Samson. No, no ; of my condition take no care ; 
 It fits not ; thou and I long since are twain ; 
 Nor think me so unwary or accursed 930 
 
 To bring my feet again into the snare 
 Where once I have been caught. I know thy trains, 
 Though dearly to my cost, thy gins, and toils ; 
 Thy fair enchanted cup and warbling charms 
 No more on me have power; their force is null'd; 935 
 
 So much of adder's wisdom I have learn'd, 
 To fence my ear against thy sorceries. 
 If in my flower of youth and strength, when all men 
 Loved, honour'd, fear'd me, thou alone could hate me, 
 Thy husband, slight me, sell me, and forgo me ; 940 
 
 How wouldst thou use me now, blind, and thereby 
 Deceivable, in most things as a child 
 Helpless, thence easily contemn'd, and scorn'd, 
 And last neglected ! How wouldst thou insult, 
 When I must live uxorious to thy will, 945 
 
 In perfect thraldom ! how again betray me, 
 Bearing my words and doings to the lords 
 To gloss upon, and, censuring, frown or smile J 
 This jail I count the house of liberty 
 To thine, whose doors my feet shall never enter. 950 
 
 Dalila. Let me approach, at least, and touch thy hand. 
 
 Samson. Not for thy life, lest fierce remembrance wake 
 My sudden rage to tear thee joint by joint. 
 At distance I forgive thee; go with that; 
 Bewail thy falsehood, and the pious works 955 
 
 It hath brought forth to make thee memorable 
 Among illustrious women, faithful wives : 
 Cherish thy hasten'd widowhood with the gold 
 Of matrimonial treason : so farewell. 
 
 Dalila. I see thou art implacable, more deaf 960 
 
 To prayers than winds and seas ; yet winds to seas 
 Are reconciled at length, and sea to shore : 
 Thy anger, unappeasable, still rages, 
 Eternal tempest, never to be calm'd. 
 Why do I humble thus myself, and, suing 965 
 
 (0134) 
 
114 
 
 SAMSON AGONISTES 
 
 For peace, reap nothing but repulse and hate, 
 
 Bid go with evil omen, and the brand 
 
 Of infamy upon my name denounced? 
 
 To mix with thy concernments I desist 
 
 Henceforth, nor too much disapprove my own. 970 
 
 Fame, if not double-faced, is double-mouth'd, 
 
 And with contrary blast proclaims most deeds ; 
 
 On both his wings, one black, the other white, 
 
 Bears greatest names in his wild aery flight. 
 
 My name, perhaps, among the Circumcised 975 
 
 In Dan, in Judah, and the bordering tribes, 
 
 To all posterity may stand defamed, 
 
 With malediction mention'd, and the blot 
 
 Of falsehood most unconjugal traduced. 
 
 But in my country, where I most desire, 980 
 
 In Ecron, Gaza, Asdod, and in Gath, 
 
 I shall be named among the famousest 
 
 Of women, sung at solemn festivals, 
 
 Living and dead recorded, who, to save 
 
 Her country from a fierce destroyer, chose 985 
 
 Above the faith of wedlock-bands ; my tomb 
 
 With odours visited, and annual flowers ; 
 
 Not less renown'd than in Mount Ephraim 
 
 Jael, who with inhospitable guile 
 
 Smote Sisera sleeping, through the temples nail'd. 990 
 
 Nor shall I count it heinous to enjoy 
 
 The public marks of honour and reward 
 
 Conferr'd upon me for the piety 
 
 Which to my country I was judged to have shown. 
 
 At this whoever envies or repines, 995, 
 
 I leave him to his lot, and like my own. {Exit. 
 
 Chorus. She 's gone, a manifest serpent by her sting 
 Discovert in the end, till now conceaFa. 
 
 Samson. So let her go : God sent her to debase me, 
 And aggravate my folly, who committed 1000 
 
 To such a viper his most sacred trust 
 Of secrecy, my safety, and my life. 
 
 Chorus. Yet beauty, though injurious, hath strange power, 
 
SAMSON AGONISTES 
 
 After offence returning, to regain 
 
 Love once possess'd, nor can be easily 
 
 Repulsed without much inward passion felt, 
 
 And secret sting of amorous remorse. ^-C 
 
 Samson. Love-quarrels oft in pleasing concord end, 
 Not wedlock-treachery endangering life. 
 
 Chorus. It is not virtue, wisdom, valour, w;t, , joio 
 Strength, comeliness of shape, or amplest merit, S^^ 
 That woman's love can win, or long inherit; 
 But what it is, hard is to say, 
 Harder to hit, 
 
 Which way soever men refer it; 1015 
 
 Much like thy riddle, Samson, in one day 
 Or seven though one should musing sit. 
 
 If any of these, or all, the Timnian bride 
 Had not so soon preferr'd 
 
 Thy paranymph, worthless to thee compared, 1020 
 
 Successor in thy bed ; 
 Nor both so loosely disallied 
 Their nuptials, nor this last so treacherously 
 Had shorn the fatal harvest of thy head. 
 Is it for that such outward ornament 1025 
 
 Was lavish'd on their sex, that inward gifts 
 Were left for haste unfinished, judgment scant, 
 Capacity not raised to apprehend 
 Or value what is best 
 
 In choice, but oftest to affect the wrong? 1030 
 
 Or was too much of self-love mix'd, 
 Of constancy no root infix'd. 
 That either they love nothing, or not long? 
 Whatever it be, to wisest men and best 
 
 Seeming at first all heavenly under virgin veil, 1035 
 
 Soft, modest, meek, demure, 
 Once join'd, the contrary she proves, a thorn 
 Intestine, far within defensive arms 
 A cleaving mischief, in his way to virtue 
 Adverse and turbulent ; or by her charms 1040 
 
 Draws him awry, enslaved 
 
Il6 SAMSON AGONISTES 
 
 With dotage, and his sense depraved 
 
 To folly and shameful deeds which ruin ends. 
 
 What pilot so expert but needs must wreck, 
 
 Embark'd with such a steers-mate at the helm ? 1045 
 
 Favour'd of Heav'n who finds 
 One virtuous, rarely found, 
 That in domestic good combines ! 
 Happy that house! his way to peace is smocll.;. 
 But virtue which breaks through all opposition, 1050 
 
 And all temptation can remove, 
 Most shines and most is acceptable above. 
 
 Therefore God's universal law 
 Gave to the man despotic power 
 
 Over his female in due awe ; 1055 
 
 Nor from that right to part an hour, 
 Smile she or lour : 
 So shall he least confusion draw 
 On his whole life, not sway'd 
 
 By female usurpation, nor dismayed. 1060 
 
 But had we best retire? I see a storm. 
 
 .Samson. Fair days have oft contracted wind and rain. 
 
 Chorus. But this another kind of tempest brings. 
 
 Samson. Be less abstruse, my riddling days are past. 
 
 Chorus. Look now for no enchanting voice, nor fear 
 The bait of honey'd words ; a rougher tongue 1066 
 
 Draws hitherward ; I know him by his stride, 
 The giant Harapha of Gath ; his look 
 Haughty as is his pile high-built and proud. 
 Comes he in peace? What wind hath blown him hither 
 I less conjecture than when first I saw . 1071 
 
 ' The sumptuous Dalila floating this way:/l 
 His habit carries peace, his brow defiance. 
 
 Samson. Or peace or not, alike to me he comes. 
 
 Chorus. His fraught we soon shall know ; he now arrives. 
 
 HARAPHA. 
 
 Harapha. I come not, Samson, to condole thy chance, 
 As these perhaps, yet wish it had not been, 1077 
 
SAMSON AGONISTES 1 17 
 
 Though for no friendly intent. I am of Gath ; 
 
 Men call me Harapha, of stock renown'd 
 
 As Og, or Anak, and the Emims old 1080 
 
 That Kiriathaim held ; thou know'st me now 
 
 If thou at all art known. Much I have heard 
 
 Of thy prodigious might and feats perform'd, 
 
 Incredible to me, in this displeased, 
 
 That I was never present on the place 1085 
 
 Of those encounters, where we might have tried 
 
 Each other's force in camp or listed field ; 
 
 And now am come to see of whom such noise 
 
 Hath walk'd about, and each limb to survey, 
 
 If thy appearance answer loud report. 1090 
 
 Samson. The way to know were not to see, but taste. 
 
 Harapha. Dost thou already single me? I thought 
 Gyves and the mill had tamed thee. O that fortune 
 Had brought me to the field where thou art famed 
 To have wrought such wonders with an ass's jaw! 1095 
 
 I should have forced thee soon with other arms, 
 Or left thy carcass where the ass lay thrown : 
 So had the glory of prowess been recovered 
 To Palestine, won by a Philistine 
 
 From the unforeskinn'd race, of whom thou bear*st 1 100 
 The highest name for valiant acts ; that honour, 
 Certain to have won by mortal duel from thee, 
 I lose, prevented by thy eyes put out. 
 
 Samson. Boast not of what thou wouldst have done, but do 
 What then thou wouldst; thou seest it in thy hand. 1105 
 
 Harapha. To combat with a blind man I disdain ; 
 And thou hast need much washing to be touch'd. 
 
 Samson. Such usage as your honourable lords 
 Afford me, assassinated and betray'd ; 
 
 Who durst not with their whole united powers 1 1 10 
 
 In fight withstand me single and unarm'd, 
 Nor in the house with chamber-ambushes 
 Close-banded durst attack me ; no, not sleeping, 
 Till they had hired a woman with their gold, 
 Breaking her marriage-faith, to circumvent me. 1115 
 
Il8 SAMSON AGONISTES 
 
 Therefore, without feign'd shifts, let be assign'd 
 
 Some narrow place enclosed, where sight may give thee, 
 
 Or rather flight, no great advantage on me ; 
 
 Then put on all thy gorgeous arms, thy helmet 
 
 And brigandine of brass, thy broad habergeon, 1 1 20 
 
 Vant-brace and greaves and gauntlet ; add thy spear, 
 
 A weaver's beam, and seven-times-folded shield ; 
 
 I only with an oaken staff will meet thee, 
 
 And raise such outcries on thy clatter'd iron, 
 
 Which long shall not withhold me from thy head, 1 125 
 
 That in a little time, while breath remains thee, 
 
 Thou oft shalt wish thyself at Gath, to boast 
 
 Again in safety what thou wouldst have done 
 
 To Samson, but shalt never see Gath more. 
 
 Harapha. Thou durst not thus disparage glorious arms, 
 Which greatest heroes have in battle worn, 1131 
 
 Their ornament and safety, had not spells, 
 And black enchantments, some magician's art, 
 Arm'd thee or charm'd thee strong, which thou from Heaven 
 Feign'dst at thy birth was given thee in thy hair, 1135 
 
 Where strength can least abide, though all thy hairs 
 Were bristles ranged like those that ridge the back 
 Of chafed wild boars, or ruffled porcupines. 
 
 Samson. \ know no spells, use no forbidden arts ; 
 My trust in is the Living God who gave me 1140 
 
 At my nativity this strength, diffused 
 No less through all my sinews, joints, and bones, 
 Than thine, while I preserved these locks unshorn, 
 The pledge of my unviolated vow. 
 
 For proof hereof, if Dagon be thy god, 1 145 
 
 Go to his temple, invocate his aid 
 With solemnest devotion, spread before him 
 How highly it concerns his glory now 
 To frustrate and dissolve these magic spells, 
 Which I to be the power of Israel's God 1150 
 
 Avow, and challenge Dagon to the test ; 
 Offering to combat thee his champion bold. 
 With the utmost of his godhead seconded; 
 
SAMSON AGONISTES 119 
 
 Then thou shalt see, or rather to thy sorrow 
 
 Soon feel, whose God is strongest, thine or mine. 1155 
 
 Harapha. Presume not on thy God, whate'er he be ; 
 Thee he regards not, owns not, hath cut off 
 Quite from his people, and deliver'd up 
 Into thine enemies' hand ; permitted them 
 To put out both thine eyes ; and fetter'd send thee 1160 
 
 Into the common prison, there to grind 
 Among the slaves and asses thy comrades, 
 As good for nothing else, no better service, 
 With those thy boisterous locks no worthy match 
 For valour to assail, nor by the sword 1165 
 
 Of noble warrior, so to stain his honour, 
 But by the barber's razor best subdued. 
 
 Samson. All these indignities, for such they are 
 From thine, these evils I deserve, and more, 
 Acknowledge them from God inflicted on me 1170 
 
 Justly, yet despair not of his final pardon 
 Whose ear is ever open, and his eye 
 Gracious to re-admit the suppliant : 
 In confidence whereof I once again 
 
 Defy thee to the trial of mortal fight, 1175 
 
 By combat to decide whose god is God, 
 Thine, or whom I with Israel's sons adore. 
 
 Harapha. Fair honour that thou dost thy God, in trust- 
 ing 
 
 He will accept thee to defend his cause, 
 A murderer, a revolter, and a robber ! 1 180 
 
 Samson. Tongue-doughty giant, how dost thou prove me 
 theseT~ 
 
 Harapha. Is not thy nation subject to our lords? 
 Their magistrates confess'd it, when they took thee 
 As a league-breaker, and deliver'd bound 
 Into our hands : for hadst thou not committed 1185 
 
 Notorious murder on those thirty men 
 At Ascalon, who never did thee harm ; 
 Then like a robber stripp'dst them of their robes ? 
 The Philistines, when thou hadst broke the league, 
 
120 SAMSON AGONISTES 
 
 Went up with armed powers thee only seeking, 1190 
 
 To others did no violence nor spoil. 
 
 Samson. Among the daughters of the Philistines 
 I chose a wife, which argued me no foe ; 
 And in your city held my nuptial feast : 
 But your ill-meaning politician lords, 1 195 
 
 Under pretence of bridal friends and guests, 
 Appointed to await me thirty spies, 
 Who, threatening cruel death, constraint the bride 
 To wring from me and tell to them my secret, 
 That solved the riddle which I had proposed. 1200 
 
 When I perceived all set on enmity, 
 As on my enemies, wherever chanced, 
 I used hostility and took their spoil 
 To pay my underminers in their coin. 
 
 My nation was subjected to your lords! 1205 
 
 It was the force of conquest ; force with force 
 Is well ejected when the conquer'd can. 
 But I, a private person, whom my country 
 As a league-breaker gave up bound, presumed 
 Single rebellion, and did hostile acts! 1210 
 
 I was no private, but a person raised 
 With strength sufficient and command from Heaven 
 To free my country ; if their servile minds 
 Me, their deliverer sent, would not receive, 
 But to their masters gave me up for nought, 1215 
 
 The unworthier they ; whence to this day they serve. 
 I was to do my part from Heav'n assign'd, 
 And had perform'd it if my known offence 
 Had not disabled me, not all your force : 
 These shifts refuted, answer thy appellant, 1220 
 
 Though by his blindness maim'd for high attempts, 
 Who now defies thee thrice to single fight, 
 As a petty enterprise of small enforce. 
 
 Harapha. With thee, a man condemned, a slave enrolFd, 
 Due by the law to capital punishment? 1225 
 
 To fight with thee no man of arms will deign. 
 
 Samson. Camest thou for this, vain boaster, to survey me, 
 
SAMSON AGONISTES 121 
 
 To descant on my strength, and give thy verdict? 
 
 Come nearer ; part not hence so slight inform'd ; 
 
 But take good heed my hand survey not thee. 1230 
 
 Harapha. O Baal-zebub ! can my ears unused 
 Hear these dishonours, and not render death? 
 
 Samson. No man withholds thee; nothing from thy hand 
 Fear I incurable ; bring up thy van ; 
 My heels are fetter'd, but my fist is free. 1235 
 
 Harapha. This insolence other kind of answer fits. 
 
 Samson. Go, baffled coward, lest I run upon thee, 
 Though in these chains, bulk without spirit vast ; 
 And with one buffet lay thy structure low, 
 Or swing thee in the air, then dash thee down 1240 
 
 To the hazard of thy brains and shatter'd sides. 
 
 Harapha. By Astaroth, ere long thou shalt lament 
 These braveries, in irons loaden on thee. \Exit. 
 
 Chorus. His giantship is gone somewhat crest-fallen, 
 Stalking with less unconscionable strides, 1245 
 
 And lower looks, but in a sultry chafe. 
 
 Samson. I dread him not, nor all his giant-brood, 
 Though fame divulge him father of five sons, 
 All of gigantic size, Goliah chief. 
 
 ^ Chorus. He will directly to the lords, I fear, 1250 
 
 And with malicious counsel stir them up 
 Some way or other yet further to afflict thee. 
 
 Samson. He must allege some cause, and offered fight 
 Will not dare mention, lest a question rise 
 Whether he durst accept the offer or not ; 1255 
 
 And that he durst not plain enough appeared. 
 Much more affliction than already felt 
 They cannot well impose, nor I sustain, 
 If they intend advantage of my labours, 
 
 . The work omany hands, which earns my keeping 1260 
 
 With no small profit daily to my owners. 
 But come what will, my deadliest foe will prove 
 My speediest friend, by death to rid me hence ; 
 The worst that he can give, to me the best. 
 Yet so it may fall out, because their end 1265 
 
[22 SAMSON AGONISTES 
 
 Is hate, not help, to me, it may with mine 
 Draw their own ruin who attempt the deed. 
 
 Chorus. O how comely it is and how reviving 
 To the spirits of just men long oppress'd! 
 When God into the hands of their deliverer 1270 
 
 Puts invincible might, 
 
 To quell the mighty of the earth, the oppressor, 
 The brute and boisterous force of violent men, 
 Hardy and industrious to support 
 
 Tyrannic power, but raging to pursue 1275 
 
 The righteous and all such as honour truth ! 
 He all their ammunition 
 And feats of war defeats, 
 With plain heroic magnitude of mind 
 
 And celestial vigour arm'd ; 1280 
 
 Their armouries and magazines contemns, 
 Renders them useless, while 
 With winged expedition 
 Swift as the lightning glance he executes 
 His errand on the wicked, who, surprised, 1285 
 
 Lose their defence, distracted and amazed. 
 '""But patience is more oft the exercise 
 Of saints, the trial of their fortitude, 
 Making them each his own deliverer, 
 
 And victor over all 1290 
 
 That tyranny or fortune can inflict. 
 Either of these is in thy lot, 
 Samson, with might endued 
 Above the sons of men ; but sight bereaved 
 May chance to number thee with those 1295 
 
 Whom patience finally must crown. 
 
 This Idol's day hath been to thee no day of rest, 
 Labouring thy mind 
 More than the working day thy hands; 
 
 And yet, perhaps, more trouble is behind, 1300 
 
 For I descry this way 
 Some other tending ; in his hand 
 A sceptre or quaint staff he bears 
 
SAMSON AGONISTES 123 
 
 Comes on amain, speed in his look. 
 
 By his habit I discern him now 1305 
 
 A public officer, and now at hand : 
 
 His message will be short and voluble. 
 
 OFFICER. 
 
 Officer. Ebrews, the prisoner Samson here I seek. 
 
 Chorus. His manacles remark him ; there he sits. 
 
 Officer. Samson, to thee our lords thus bid me say : 1310 
 This day to Dagon is a solemn feast, 
 With sacrifices, triumph, pomp, and games ; 
 Thy strength they know surpassing human rate, 
 And now some public proof thereof require 
 To honour this great feast, and great assembly. 1315 
 
 Rise therefore with all speed, and come along, 
 Where I shall see thee hearten'd and fresh clad, 
 JTo appear as fits before the illustrious lords. 
 
 Samson. Thou knows't I am an Ebrew ; therefore tell them, 
 Our law forbids at their religious rites 1320 
 
 My presence ; for that cause I cannot come. 
 
 Officer. This answer, be assured, will not content them. 
 
 Samson. Have they not sword-playerfe, and every sort 
 Of gymnic artists, wrestlers, riders, runners, 
 Jugglers and dancers, antics, mummers, mimics, 1325 
 
 But they must pick me out, with shackles tired, 
 And over-labour'd at their public mill, 
 To make them sport with blind activity? 
 Do they not seek occasion of new quarrels 
 On my refusal, to distress me more, 133 
 
 Or make a game of my calamities? 
 Return the way thou earnest ; I will not come. 
 
 Officer. Regard thyself; this will offend them highly. 
 
 Samson. Myself! my conscience, and internal peace. 
 Can they think me so broken, so debased 1335 
 
 With corporal servitude, that my mind ever 
 Will condescend to such absurd commands? 
 Although their drudge, to be their fool or jester, 
 And in my midst of sorrow and heart-grief 
 
124 SAMSON AGONISTES 
 
 To show them feats, and play before their god 1340 
 
 The worst of all indignities, yet on me 
 
 Join'd with extreme contempt ! I will not come. 
 
 Officer. My message was imposed on me with speed, 
 Brooks no delay: is this thy resolution? 1344 
 
 Samson. So take it with what speed thy message needs. 
 
 Officer. I am sorry what this stoutness will produce. \Exit. 
 
 Samson. Perhaps thou shalt have cause to sorrow indeed. 
 
 Chorus. Consider, Samson ; matters now are strain'd 
 Up to the highth, whether to hold or break : 
 He's gone ; and who knows how he may report 1350 
 
 Thy words by adding fuel to the flame ? 
 Expect another message, more imperious, 
 More lordly thundering than thou well wilt bear. 
 
 Samson. Shall I abuse this consecrated gift 
 Of strength, again returning with my hair, 1355 
 
 After my great transgression? so requite 
 Favour renewed, and add a greater sin 
 By prostituting holy things to idols, 
 A Nazarite in place abominable 
 
 Vaunting my strength in honour to their Dagon? 1360 
 
 Besides how vile, contemptible, ridiculous, 
 What act more execrably unclean, profane? 
 
 Chorus. Yet with this strength thou servest the Philistines, 
 Idolatrous, uncircumcised, unclean. 
 
 Samson. Not in their idol-worship, but by labour 1 365 
 Honest and lawful, to deserve my food 
 Of those who have me in their civil power. 
 
 Chorus. Where the heart joins not, outward acts defile not. 
 
 Samson. Where outward force constrains, the sentence 
 
 holds : 
 
 But who constrains me to the temple of Dagon, 1370 
 
 Not dragging? The Philistian lords command: 
 Commands are no constraints. If I obey them, 
 I do it freely, venturing to displease 
 God for the fear of man, and man prefer, 
 Set God behind : which in his jealousy 1375 
 
 Shall never, unrepented, find forgiveness. 
 
SAMSON AGONISTES 125 
 
 Yet that he may dispense with me, or thee, 
 
 Present in temples at idolatrous rites 
 
 For some important cause, thou need'st not doubt. 
 
 Chorus. How thou wilt here come off surmounts my reach. 
 
 Samson. Be of good courage; I begin to feel 1381 
 
 Some rousing motions in me, which dispose 
 To something extraordinary my thoughts. 
 I with this messenger will go along, 
 
 Nothing to do, be sure, that may dishonour 1385 
 
 Our law, or stain my vow of Nazarite. 
 If there be aught of presage in the mind, 
 This day will be remarkable in my life 
 By some great act, or of my days the last. 
 
 Chorus. In time thou hast resolved; the man returns. 1390 
 
 Officer. Samson, this second message from our lords 
 To thee I am bid say : Art thou our slave, 
 Our captive, at the public mill our drudge, 
 And darest thou at our sending and command 
 Dispute thy coming? Come without delay ; 1395 
 
 Or we shall find such engines to assail 
 And hamper thee, as thou shalt come of force, 
 Though thou wert firmlier fasten'd than a rock. 
 
 Samson. I could be well content to try their art, 
 Which to no few of them would prove pernicious ; 1400 
 
 Yet, knowing their advantages too many, 
 Because they shall not trail me through their streets 
 Like a wild beast, I am content to go. 
 Masters' commands come with a power resistless 
 To such as owe them absolute subjection; 1405 
 
 And for a life who will not change his purpose? 
 (So mutable are all the ways of men !) 
 Yet this be sure, in nothing to comply 
 Scandalous or forbidden in our law. 
 
 Officer. I praise thy resolution. Doff these links : 1410 
 By this compliance thou wilt win the lords 
 To favour, and perhaps to set thee free. 
 
 Samson. Brethren, farewell : your company along 
 I will not wish, lest it perhaps offend them 
 
126 SAMSON AGONISTES 
 
 To see me girt with friends; and how the sight 1415 
 
 Of me, as of a common enemy, 
 
 So dreaded once, may now exasperate them 
 
 I know not. Lords are lordliest in their wine ; 
 
 And the well-feasted priest then soonest fired 
 
 With zeal, if aught religion seem concern'd; 1420 
 
 No less the people, on their holy-days, 
 
 Impetuous, insolent, unquenchable : 
 
 Happen what may, of me expect to hear 
 
 Nothing dishonourable, impure, unworthy 
 
 Our God, our law, my nation, or myself; 1425 
 
 The last of me or no I cannot warrant. 
 
 \Exeunt SAMSON and the OFFICER. 
 Chorus. Go, and the Holy One 
 Of Israel be thy guide 
 
 To what may serve his glory best, and spread his name 
 Great among the heathen round ; 1430 
 
 Send thee the Angel of thy birth, to stand 
 Fast by thy side, who from thy father's field 
 Rode up in flames after his message told 
 Of thy conception, and be now a shield 
 Of fire; that Spirit that first rush'd on thee 1435 
 
 In the camp of Dan 
 Be efficacious in thee now at need ! 
 For never was from Heaven imparted 
 Measure of strength so great to mortal seed, 
 As in thy wondrous actions hath been seen. 1440 
 
 But wherefore comes old Manoa in such haste 
 With youthful steps? Much livelier than erewhile 
 He seems : supposing here to find his son, 
 Or of him bringing to us some glad news? 
 
 MANOA. 
 
 Manoa. Peace with you, brethren ! My inducement hither 
 Was not at present here to find my son, 1446 
 
 By order of the lords new parted hence 
 To come and play before them at their feast. 
 I heard all as I came, the city nngs, 
 
SAMSON AGONISTES I2/ 
 
 And numbers thither flock; I had no will, 1450 
 
 Lest I should see him forced to things unseemly. 
 But that which moved my coming now was chiefly 
 To give ye part with me what hope I have 
 With good success to work his liberty. 
 
 Chorus. That hope would much rejoice us to partake 
 With thee: say, reverend sire; we thirst to hear. 1456 
 
 Manoa. I have attempted, one by one, the lords 
 Either at home, or through the high street passing, 
 With supplication prone and father's tears, 
 To accept of ransom for my son their prisoner. 1460 
 
 Some much averse I found, and wondrous harsh, 
 Contemptuous, proud, set on revenge and spite ; 
 That part most reverenced Dagon and his priests : 
 Others more moderate seeming, but their aim 
 Private reward, for which both God and State 1465 
 
 They easily would set to sale : a third 
 More generous far and civil, who confess'd 
 They had enough revenged, having reduced 
 Their foe to misery beneath their fears : 
 The rest was magnanimity to remit, 1470 
 
 If some convenient ransom were proposed 
 What noise or shout was that? It tore the sky. 
 
 Chorus. Doubtless the people shouting to behold 
 Their once great dread, captive and blind before them, 
 Or at some proof of strength before them shown. 1475 
 
 Manoa. His ransom, if my whole inheritance 
 May compass it, shall willingly be paid 
 And number'd down : much rather I shall choose 
 To live the poorest in my tribe, than richest, 
 And he in that calamitous prison left. 1480 
 
 No, I am fix'd not to part hence without him. 
 For his redemption, all my patrimony, 
 If need be, I am ready to forgo 
 And quit : not wanting him, I shall want nothing. 
 
 Chorus. Fathers are wont to lay up for their sons, 1485 
 Thou for thy son art bent to lay out all ; 
 Sons wont to nurse their parents in old age, 
 
128 SAMSON AGONISTES 
 
 Thou in old age carest how to nurse thy son, 
 Made older than thy age through eye-sight lost. 
 
 Manoa. It shall be my delight to tend his eyes, 1490 
 
 And view him sitting in his house, ennobled 
 With all those high exploits by him achieved, 
 And on his shoulders waving down those locks, 
 That of a nation arm'd the strength contain'd. 
 And I persuade me, God had not permitted 1495 
 
 His strength again to grow up with his hair, 
 Garrison'd round about him like a camp 
 Of faithful soldiery, were not his purpose 
 To use him further yet in some great service 
 Not to sit idle with so great a gift 1 500 
 
 Useless, and thence ridiculous, about him. 
 And, since his strength with eye-sight was not lost, 
 God will restore him eye-sight to his strength. 
 
 Chorus. Thy hopes are not ill founded, nor seem vain, 
 Of his delivery, and thy joy thereon 1 505 
 
 Conceived agreeable to a father's love, 
 In both which we, as next, participate. 
 
 Manoa. I know your friendly minds and Oh! what noise! 
 Mercy of Heaven ! What hideous noise was that? 
 Horribly loud, unlike the former shout. 1510 
 
 Chorus. Noise call you it, or universal groan 
 As if the whole inhabitation perish'd? 
 Blood, death, and deathful deeds are in that noise ; 
 Ruin, destruction at the utmost point. 
 
 Manoa. Of ruin indeed methought I heard the noise : 
 Oh ! it continues ; they have slain my son. 15 16 
 
 Chorus. Thy son is rather slaying them ; that outcry 
 From slaughter of one foe could not ascend. 
 
 Manoa. Some dismal accident it needs must be ; 
 What shall we do, stay here, or run and see? 1520 
 
 Chorus. Best keep together here, lest, running thither, 
 We unawares run into danger's mouth. 
 This evil on the Philistines is fall'n : 
 From whom could else a general cry be heard? 
 The sufferers then will scarce molest us here; 1525 
 
SAMSON AGONISTES 129 
 
 From other hands we need not much to fear 
 
 What if, his eye-sight (for to Israel's God 
 
 Nothing is hard) by miracle restored, 
 
 He now be dealing dole among his foes, 
 
 And over heaps of slaughter'd walk his way? 1530 
 
 Manoa. That were a joy presumptuous to be thought. 
 
 Chorus. Yet God hath wrought things as incredible 
 For his people of old; what hinders now? 
 
 Manoa. He can, I know, but doubt to think he will; 
 Yet hope would fain subscribe, and tempts belief. 1535 
 
 A little stay will bring some notice hither. 
 
 Chorus. Of good or bad so great, of bad the sooner ; 
 For evil news rides post, while good news baits. 
 And to our wish I see one hither speeding, 
 An Ebrew, as I guess, and of our tribe. 1 540 
 
 Messenger. O whither shall I run, or which way fly 
 The sight of this so horrid spectacle, 
 Which erst my eyes beheld, and yet behold? 
 For dire imagination still pursues me. 
 
 But providence or instinct of nature seems, 1545 
 
 Or reason, though disturb'd and scarce consulted, 
 To have guided me aright, I know not how, 
 To thee first, reverend Manoa, and to these 
 My countrymen, whom here I knew remaining, 
 As at some distance from the place of horror, 1 550 
 
 So in the sad event too much concern'd. 
 
 Manoa. The accident was loud, and here before thee 
 With rueful cry ; yet what it was we hear not : 
 No preface needs ; thou seest we long to know. 
 
 Messenger. It would burst forth ; but I recover breath, 
 And sense distract, to know well what I utter. 1556 
 
 Manoa. Tell us the sum, the circumstance defer. 
 
 Messenger. Gaza yet stands ; but all her sons are fallen ; 
 All in a moment overwhelmed and fall'n. 
 
 Manoa. Sad! but thou know'st to Israelites not saddest, 
 The desolation of a hostile city. 1561 
 
 Messenger. Feed on that first ; there may in grief be sur- 
 feit. 
 
 (0184) 9 
 
130 SAMSON AGONISTES 
 
 Manoa. Relate by whom. 
 
 Messenger. By Samson. 
 
 Manoa. That still lessens 
 
 The sorrow, and converts it nigh to joy. 
 
 Messenger. Ah ! Manoa, I refrain too suddenly 1565 
 
 To utter what will come at last too soon ; 
 Lest evil tidings, with too rude irruption 
 Hitting thy aged ear, should pierce too deep. 
 
 Manoa. Suspense in news is torture ; speak them out. 
 
 Messenger. Take then the worst in brief: Samson is dead. 
 
 Manoa. The worst indeed! O all my hope's defeated 
 To free him hence ! but Death who sets all free 
 Hath paid his ransom now and full discharge. 
 What windy joy this day had I conceived, 
 Hopeful of his delivery, which now proves 1575 
 
 Abortive as the first-born bloom of spring 
 Nipp'd with the lagging rear of winter's frost ! 
 Yet, ere I give the reins to grief, say first, 
 How died he? death to life is crown or shame. 
 All by him fell, thou say'st : by whom fell he? 1580 
 
 What glorious hand gave Samson his death's wound? 
 
 Messenger. Unwounded of his enemies he fell. 
 
 Manoa. Wearied with slaughter then, or how? explain. 
 
 Messenger. By his own hands. 
 
 Manoa. Self-violence? What cause 
 
 Brought him so soon at variance with himself, 1585 
 
 Among his foes? 
 
 Messenger. Inevitable cause, 
 At once both to destroy and be destroyed : 
 The edifice, where all were met to see him, 
 Upon their heads and on his own he pull'd. 
 
 Manoa. O lastly over-strong against thyself! 1590 
 
 A dreadful way thou took'st to thy revenge. 
 More than enough we know ; but, while things yet 
 Are in confusion, give us, if thou canst, 
 Eye-witness of what first or last was done, 
 Relation more particular and distinct. 1595 
 
 Messenger. Occasions drew me early to this city ; 
 
SAMSON AGONISTES 131 
 
 And as the gates I enter'd with sun-rise, 
 
 The morning trumpets festival proclaim'd 
 
 Through each high street. Little I had dispatch'd, 
 
 When all abroad was rumourM that this day 1600 
 
 Samson should be brought forth, to show the people 
 
 Proof of his mighty strength in feats and games. 
 
 I sorrow'd at his captive state, but minded 
 
 Not to be absent at that spectacle. 
 
 The building was a spacious theatre, 1605 
 
 Half round on two main pillars vaulted high, 
 
 With seats where all the lords, and each degree 
 
 Of sort, might sit in order to behold ; 
 
 The other side was open, where the throng 
 
 On banks and scaffolds under sky might stand; 1610 
 
 I among these aloof obscurely stood. 
 
 The feast and noon grew high, and sacrifice 
 
 Had filPd their hearts with mirth, high cheer, and vvine 3 
 
 When to their sports they turn'd. Immediately 
 
 Was Samson as a public servant brought, 1615 
 
 In their state livery clad ; before him pipes 
 
 And timbrels ; on each side went armed guards, 
 
 Both horse and foot before him and behind, 
 
 Archers and slingers, cataphracts and spears. 
 
 At sight of him the people with a shout 1620 
 
 Rifted the air, clamouring their god with praise, 
 
 Who had made their dreadful enemy their thrall. 
 
 He, patient but undaunted, where they led him, 
 
 Came to the place ; and what was set before him, 
 
 Which without help of eye might be assay'd, 1625 
 
 To heave, pull, draw, or break, he still perform'd 
 
 All with incredible, stupendious force, 
 
 None daring to appear antagonist. 
 
 At length, for intermission sake, they led him 
 
 Between the pillars; he his guide requested 1630 
 
 (For so from such as nearer stood we heard), 
 
 As over-tired, to let him lean a while 
 
 With both his arms on those two massy pillars 
 
 That to the arched roof gave main support. 
 
132 SAMSON AGONISTES 
 
 He unsuspicious led him ; which when Samson 1635 
 
 Felt in his arms, with head a while inclined, 
 
 And eyes fast fix'd, he stood, as one who pray'd, 
 
 Or some great matter in his mind revolved. 
 
 At last, with head erect, thus cried aloud : 
 
 " Hitherto, lords, what your commands imposed 1640 
 
 I have performed, as reason was, obeying, 
 
 Not without wonder or delight beheld. 
 
 Now, of my own accord, such other trial 
 
 I mean to show you of my strength, yet greater, 
 
 As with amaze shall strike all who behold." 1645 
 
 This utter'd, straining all his nerves he bow'd ; 
 
 As with the force of winds and waters pent 
 
 When mountains tremble, those two massy pillars 
 
 With horrible convulsion to and fro 
 
 He tugg'd, he shook, till down they came, and drew 1650 
 
 The whole roof after them with burst of thunder 
 
 Upon the heads of all who sat beneath, 
 
 Lords, ladies, captains, counsellors, or priests, 
 
 Their choice nobility and flower, not only 
 
 Of this, but each Philistian city round, 1655 
 
 Met from all parts to solemnize this feast. 
 
 Samson, with these immix'd, inevitably 
 
 Pull'd down the same destruction on himself; 
 
 The vulgar only scaped who stood without. 
 
 Chorus. O dearly bought revenge, yet glorious! 1660 
 
 Living or dying thou hast fulfill'd 
 The work for which thou wast foretold 
 To Israel, and now liest victorious 
 Among thy slain self-kill'd ; 
 
 Not willingly, but tangled in the fold 1665 
 
 Of dire Necessity, whose law in death conjoin'd 
 Thee with thy slaughter'd foes, in number more 
 Than all thy life had slain before. 
 
 i Semichorus. While their hearts were jocund and sublime, 
 Drunk with idolatry, drunk with wine, 1670 
 
 And fat regorged of bulls and goats, 
 Chanting their idol, and preferring 
 
SAMSON AGONISTES 133 
 
 Before oar living Dread who dwells 
 
 In Silo his bright sanctuary : 
 
 Among them he a spirit of frenzy sent, 1675 
 
 Who hurt their minds, 
 
 And urged them on with mad desire 
 
 To call in haste for their destroyer : 
 
 They only set on sport and play 
 
 Unweetingly importuned 1680 
 
 Their own destruction to come speedy upon them. 
 
 So fond are mortal men 
 
 Fall'n into wrath divine, 
 
 As their own ruin on themselves to invite, 
 
 Insensate left, or to sense reprobate, 1685 
 
 And with blindness internal struck. 
 
 2 Semichorus. But he, though blind of sight, 
 Despised, and thought extinguish'd quite, 
 With inward eyes illuminated, 
 
 His fiery virtue roused 1690 
 
 Trom under ashes into sudden flame, 
 And as an evening dragon came, 
 Assailant on the perched roosts, 
 And nests in order ranged 
 
 Of tame villatic fowl; but as an eagle 1695 
 
 His cloudless thunder bolted on their heads. 
 So Virtue, given for lost, 
 Depress'd and overthrown, as seem'd, 
 Like that self-begotten bird 
 
 In the Arabian woods emboss'd, 17 
 
 That no second knows nor third, 
 And lay erewhile in a holocaust, 
 From out her ashy womb now teem'd, 
 Revives, reflourishes, then vigorous most 
 When most unactive deem'd ; 1705 
 
 And, though her body die, her fame survives, 
 A secular bird, ages of lives. 
 
 Manoa. Come, come ; no time for lamentation now, 
 Nor much more cause : Samson hath quit himself 
 Like Samson, and heroically hath finished 1710 
 
134 SAMSON AGONISTES 
 
 A hfe heroic, on his enemies 
 
 Fully revenged ; hath left them years of mourning, 
 
 And lamentation to the sons of Caphtor 
 
 Through all Philistian bounds; to Israel 
 
 Honour hath left and freedom, let but them 1715 
 
 Find courage to lay hold on this occasion ; 
 
 To himself and father's house eternal fame ; 
 
 And, which is best and happiest yet, all this 
 
 With God not parted from him, as was fear'd, 
 
 But favouring and assisting to the end. 1720 
 
 Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail 
 
 Or knock the breast ; no weakness, no contempt, 
 
 Dispraise, or blame ; nothing but well and fair, 
 
 And what may quiet us in a death so noble. 
 
 Let us go find the body where it lies 1725 
 
 Soak'd in his enemies' blood, and from the stream 
 
 With lavers pure and cleansing herbs wash off 
 
 The clotted gore. I, with what speed the while 
 
 (Gaza is not in plight to say us nay), 
 
 Will send for all my kindred, all my friends, 1730 
 
 To fetch him hence, and solemnly attend 
 
 With silent obsequy and funeral train 
 
 Home to his father's house. There will I build him 
 
 A monument, and plant it round with shade 
 
 Of laurel ever green, and branching palm, 1735 
 
 With all his trophies hung, and acts enrolPd 
 
 In copious legend, or sweet lyric song. 
 
 Thither shall all the valiant youth resort, 
 
 And from his memory inflame their breasts 
 
 To matchless valour and adventures high : 1 746 
 
 The virgins also shall, on feastful days, 
 
 Visit his tomb with flowers, only bewailing 
 
 His lot unfortunate in nuptial choice, 
 
 From whence captivity and loss of eyes. 
 
 Chorus. All is best, though we oft doubt, 1745 
 
 What the unsearchable dispose 
 Of Highest W 7 isdom brings about, 
 And ever best found in the close. 
 
SAMSON AGONISTES 135 
 
 Oft he seems to hide his face, 
 
 But unexpectedly returns ; 1750 
 
 And to his faithful champion hath in place 
 
 Bore witness gloriously ; whence Gaza mourns, 
 
 And all that band them to resist 
 
 His uncontrollable intent ; 
 
 His servants he, with new acquist 1755 
 
 Of true experience from this great event, 
 
 With peace and consolation hath dismiss'd, 
 
 And calm of mind, all passion spent 
 
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