Some awful moment to which Heaver has joined Great issues, good or bad for human kind, Is happy as a lover; and attired With sudden brightness like a man inspired; And, through the heat of conflict, keeps the law In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw; Or if an unexpected call succeed, Come when it will, is equal to the need: - He who, though thus endued as with a sense And faculty for storm and turbulence, Is yet a soul whose master bias leans To homefelt pleasures and to gentle scenes; Sweet images! which, wheresoe'er he be, Are at his heart; and such fidelity 'Tis, finally, the man, who, lifted high, Conspicuous object in a nation's eye, Or left unthought of in obscurity, Who, with a toward or untoward lot, Prosperous or adverse, to his wish or not, Plays, in the many games of life, that one Where what he most doth value must be won; Whom neither shape of danger can dismay, Nor thought of tender happiness betray; Who, not content that former worth stand fast, Looks forward persevering to the See how he lies at random, carelessly diffused, With languished head unpropped, Or do my eyes misrepresent? can this be he, That heroic, that renowned, Irresistible Samson? whom unarmed 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, Made arms ridiculous, useless the forgery Of brazen shield and spear, the hammered cuirass, Chalybean tempered steel, and frock of mail Adamantëan proof; But safest he who stood aloof, When insupportably his foot advanced, In scorn of their proud arms and warlike tools, Spurned them to death by troops. Their plated backs under his heel, Or, grovelling, soiled 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: Then by main force pulled 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. Which shall I first bewail, |