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Hasten the welcome end of all my pains.

Manoah. 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.
But God, who caus'd 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,
Wherewith to serve him better than thou hast;
And I persuade me so; why else this strength
Miraculous yet remaining in those locks?
His might continues in thee not for nought,
Nor shall his wonderous gifts be frustrate thus,
Samson. All otherwise to me my thoughts por-

tend,

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
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.

Manoah. Believe not these suggestions, which proceed

From anguish of the mind and humours black,

That mingle with thy fancy. I however
Must not omit a father's timely care
To prosecute the means of thy deliverance

By ransom, or how else: mean while be calm,

And healing words from these thy friends admit,

[Exit.] Samson. O that Torment should not be confin'd

To the body's wounds and sores,

With maladies innumerable

In heart, head, breast, and reins;

But must secret passage find

To the inmost mind,

Their exercise all his fierce accidents,

And on her purest spirits prey,

As on entrails, joints, and limbs,

With answerable pains, but more intense,

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

Rankle, and fester, and gangrene,

To black mortification.

Thoughts, my tormenters, arm'd with deadly stings, Mangle my apprehensive tenderest parts,

Exasperate, exulcerate, and raise

Dire inflammation, which no cooling herb
Or medicínal liquour can asswage,

Nor breath of vernal air from snowy Alp,
Sleep hath forsook and given me o'er

To death's benumming opium as my only cure:
Thence faintings, swoonings of despair,

And sense of Heaven's desertion.

I was his nursling once, and choice delight, His destin'd from the womb,

Promis'd by heavenly message twice descending. Under his special eye

Abstemious I grew up, and thriv'd amain;

He led me on to mightiest deeds,
Above the nerve of mortal arm,

Against the uncircumcis'd, our enemies :
But now has cast me off as never known,
And to those cruel enemies,

Whom I by his appointment had provok'd,
Left me all helpless with the irreparable loss
Of sight, reserv'd alive to be repeated
The subject of their cruelty or scorn.
Nor am I in the list of them that hope;
Hopeless are all my evils, all remediless :
This one prayer yet remains, might I be heard,
No long petition, speedy death,

The close of all my miseries, and the balm.

Chorus. Many are the sayings of the wise, In ancient and in modern books inroll❜d, Extolling patience as the truest fortitude; And to the bearing well of all calamities,

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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

Little prevails, or rather seems a tune

Harsh, and of dissonant mood from his complaint; Unless he feel within

Some source of consolation from above,

Secret refreshings, that repair his strength,
And fainting spirits uphold.

God of our fathers, what is man!

That thou towards him with hand so various,
Or might I say contrarious,

Temper❜st thy providence through his short course,
Not evenly, as thou rul'st

The angelick Orders, and inferior creatures mute, Irrational and brute.

Nor do I name of men the common rout,

That wandering loose about

Grow up and perish, as the summer-fly,
Heads without name no more remember'd;
But such as thou hast solemnly elected,
With gifts and graces eminently adorn'd,
To some great work, thy glory,

And people's safety, which in part they effect:
Yet toward these thus dignified, thou oft,
Amidst their highth of noon,

Changest thy countenance, and thy hand, with no

regard

Of highest favours past

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

Nor only dost degrade them, or remit

To life obscur'd, which were a fair dismission, But throw'st them lower than thou didst exalt them high,

Unseemly falls in human eye,

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 captív'd;

Or to the unjust tribunals, under change of times,
And condemnation of the ingrateful multitude.
If these they 'scape, perhaps in poverty

With sickness and disease thou bow'st them down,
Painful diseases and deform'd,

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Though not disordinate, yet causeless suffering
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, The image of thy strength, and mighty minister. What do I beg? how hast thou dealt already! Behold him in his state calamitous, and turn His labours, for thou canst, to peaceful end.

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