Samson on His Blindness

John Milton (1608–1674)

From “Samson Agonistes”

O LOSS of sight, of thee I must complain!

Blind among enemies, O, worse than chains,

Dungeon, or beggary, or decrepit age!

Light, the prime work of God, to me is extinct,

And all her various objects of delight

Annulled, which might in part my grief have eased.

Inferior to the vilest now become

Of man or worm; the vilest here excel me:

They creep, yet see; I, dark in light, exposed

To daily fraud, contempt, abuse, and wrong,

Within doors or without, still as a fool,

In power of others, never in my own;

Scarce half I seem to live, dead more than half.

O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of moon,

Irrecoverably dark, total eclipse,

Without all hope of day!