I mean to show you of my strength, yet greater, He tugg'd, he shook, till down they came and drew Lords, ladies, captains, counsellors, or priests, Cho. O dearly bought revenge, yet glorious! The work for which thou wast foretold Among thy slain self-kill'd, Not willingly, but tangled in the fold Of dire necessity, whose law in death conjoin'd [sublime, 1 Semichor. While their hearts were jocund and Drunk with idolatry, drunk with wine, In Silo, his bright sanctuary: Among them he a spirit of frenzy sent, And urged them on with mad desire Their own destruction to come speedy upon them. Fallen into wrath divine, As their own ruin on themselves to invite, And with blindness internal struck. 2 Semichor. But he, though blind of sight, Despised and thought extinguish'd quite, With inward eyes illuminated, His fiery virtue roused From 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 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 embost, That no second knows nor third, And lay ere while a holocaust, From out her ashy womb now teem'd, Revives, reflourishes, then vigorous most When most unactive deem'd; And, though her body die, her fame survives A secular bird ages of lives. Man. Come, come; no time for lamentation now, Nor much more cause; Samson hath quit himself Like Samson, and heroicly hath finish'd A life heroic; on his enemies Fully revenged, hath left them years of mourning, Or knock the breast; no weakness, no contempt, Soak'd in his enemies' blood; and from the stream Will send for all my kindred, all my friends, 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 But unexpectedly returns, 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 Of true experience, from this great event And calm of mind all passion spent. COMU S. A Mask. PRESENTED AT LUDLOW CASTLE, 1634, BEFORE JOHN, EARL OF BRIDGEWATER, THEN PRESIDENT OF WALES. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE JOHN LORD VISCOUNT BRACKLEY, SON AND HEIR APPARENT TO THE EARL OF BRIDGEWATER, &c. MY LORD, THIS poem, which received its first occasion of birth from yourself and others of your noble family, and much honour from your own person in the performance, now returns again to make a final dedication of itself to you. Although not openly acknowledged by the author, yet it is a legitimate offspring, so lovely, and so much desired, that the often copying of it hath tired my pen to give my several friends satisfaction, and brought me to a necessity of producing it to the public view; and now to offer it up in all rightful devotion to those fair hopes, and rare endowments of your much promising youth, which give a full assurance, to all that know you, of a future ex |