With wrists all scarred, and arms in solemn guise
Folded, in listless sorrow, on his breast,
While sinks his head, as if awearied, there?
It is the Hebrew, Samson; girt by foes,
Worn with the fever of a prisoner's heart,
And by his griefs enfeebled. Late he stood,
Unshorn and full of strength, on Hebron's hill,
While bars and ponderous gates his shoulders bore,
Wrenched from proud Gaza's wall, when midnight
clouds
Toiled with the moon for mastery in the sky.
Now, robbed of sight, he groped his way, and stood Between the pillars of that mighty pile,
And heard, with troubled ear, the murmuring tones That swelled, tumultuous, round him. Then, perchance,
His wandering thoughts the mazy days recalled,
When, through voluptuous hours, his eyes, ensnared,
Were bent upon the syren, by whose arts
He late had mourned in prison. Now, no more,
Her witching dalliance charmed: her form, no more,
Moved like a spell before him. He had woke,
From a poor vision of ephemeral joy,
To brazen fetters and a dungeon's gloom.
A pause amidst the mirth-as comes a calm