Samson Agonistes

But what more oft in Nations grown corrupt, And by thir vices brought to servitude, Than to love Bondage more than Liberty, Bondage with ease than strenuous liberty;

All is best, though we oft doubt, what the unsearchable dispose, of highest wisdom brings about.

Retiring from the popular noise, I seek This unfrequented place to find some ease, Ease to the body some, none to the mind From restless thoughts, that like a deadly swarm Of Hornets arm'd, no sooner found alone,  But rush upon me thronging, and present Times past, what once I was, and what am now.

O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon, Irrecoverably dark, total Eclipse Without all hope of day! O first created Beam, and thou great Word, Let there be light, and light was over all; Why am I thus bereav'd thy prime decree? The Sun to me is dark And silent as the Moon, When she deserts the night Hid in her vacant interlunar cave.

Nothing dishonourable, impure, unworthy Our God, our law, my nation, or my self The last of me or not can not warrant

…Promise was that I Should Israel from Philistian yoke deliver; Ask for this great deliverer now, and find him Eyeless in Gaza at the Mill with slaves…

Myself my sepulcher, a moving grave, Buried, yet not exempt By privilege of death and burial From worst of other evils, pains and wrongs, But made hereby obnoxious To all the miseries of life.