The Two Brothers, and other poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Give me thy hand, brave stripling, for mine eyes
Are dim with age and many sorrows: rise
And lead me to that rocky seat, whereon
Beams the full radiance of the summer sun;
And basking in his glory, ere he laves
His chariot wheels in yonder western waves,—
Again my frozen life-streams onward flowing,
Again my heart with manhood's pulses glowing,—
I'll grant thy eager and long-sought request,
Before I sink to silence and to rest.

Yes, thou hast urged me oftentimes to tell
How my child Samson lived and fought and fell;
By all the silent pleading of those years
Spent with an old man in this vale of tears,
By all the brooding thunder-clouds of war
Skirting the confines of our land afar,
And by thy hopes to light the latent fire
Of thy young heart at Samson's funeral pyre;
I felt thy silent longings; but my heart,
Though school'd in grief, refused the mourner's part:
I could not tell thee without tears his story—
I could not weep o'er Samson's tomb of glory:—
But now I feel, I know my hour is nigh.
Who weeps with heaven before him? fix thine eye
On mine: the sun shines cloudless: it is well:
Now listen to an old man's tale, and tell
The after centuries when I am gone,
So spake Manoah of his only son.

Yes, the dark clouds are breaking from my sight,
My childhood floats before me: bathed in light

Again I see my fond parental home
Smiling in beauty, and again I roam
Its green and quiet pastures. Like a dream
Flow'd on apace with me life's early stream,
And roughen'd as it flow'd: for vengeance fell
On guilty and apostate Israel .
And we, who sate beneath our household vine,
Fled for long years before the Philistine,
And groan'd to see the spoiler's ruthless hand
Crush the fair promise of our holy land.

Then was it, in that dark and cloudy day
When Israel wander'd shepherdless astray,
That first I saw the partner of my life,
And sought her hand, and she became my wife.
No festal banquet graced our nuptial eve,
No virgins, chaplet-crown'd, came forth to weave
The dance before us, or with sacred hymn
Tended us home:—but on the mountains dim,

In silence and in solitude at night,
Our parents ratified the solemn rite.
They call'd the stars to witness, and the rills
Made answer to the everlasting hills—
Espousals meet for Samson's parents! years
Of brief tranquillity, and many tears
Pass'd silently. But Heaven who gave the bride
The pledge of bridal blessedness denied; My wife was barren and bare not : alas,
Too oft I saw the cloud of anguish pass
Across her lovely brow, and often read,
Albeit not a whisper'd word she said,
The passionate prayer of Rachel in her eye,
“My husband, give me children, or I die .”

The foe was seeking other fields of prey;
Our home began to smile anew; the day
Was wearing into twilight; when I heard
My wife's quick footstep on the verdant sward.

“Manoah,” with excited joy she spake,
“At thy command by yonder wooded brake
“I watch'd the flock, and on the fountain's stone
“Was seated, musing as I deem'd alone,
“When on a sudden I was made aware
“That some one stood beside me;—without care,
“Deeming thou needest me, my eyes I raised,
“And on the messenger unconscious gazed:
“But when I saw him I was troubled:—white
“Was his apparel as transparent light,
“And, like the visions of prophetic trance,
“The awful beauty of his countenance.
“My heart misgave me:—was he from above?—
“But fear and wonder both were lost in love
“When from his lips the blessed tidings fell
“Of bliss to me, and hope to Israel:—
“‘Lo, thou art barren, and thou bearest not;
“‘Woman, bewail no more thy childless lot:
“‘Behold thou shalt conceive and bear a child,
“‘A Nazarite devoted, undefiled,
“‘Who while his holy hair unrazor'd grows
“‘Shall save his people from their taunting foes.’”

And as in thought she drank the promised cup
Of motherly endearment, love lit up
Her face with pure delight; she could not weep
Though tears were in her eyes, but all the deep
Expressions of a wife's, a woman's soul
Over her face in crimson blushes stole.

Faith wrestled in my heart, and won. I felt
That God had spoken to her, and we knelt
Together suppliant before His throne
And made our soul's harmonious longings known.
So ever used we, and though often cast
As exiles on the desert's howling waste,
Or nightly lurking where the secret wave
Murmur'd but shone not in the starless cave,
Or kneeling on our fathers' burial sod,
One utterance told our yearning thoughts to God.

We pray'd, “O Lord, parental wisdom, grant.”
He heard us; and the heavenly visitant
As she was seated in the lonely field
Again his glory and his grace reveal'd.

Straightway she ran and call'd me; love divine
Shone calmly in his human eye benign,
And when I ask'd him of our promised child,
How we should train him for the Lord, he smiled
And spake so graciously that I began
To feel towards him as a brother man.
He only veil'd his brightness—when I pray'd
That he would tarry where the grateful shade
Fell on the glebe from some o'erhanging rock,
The while I brought a firstling from my flock,
He answer'd, “If a firstling thou wilt bring,
“Then offer to the Lord thine offering.”
And when astonish'd I besought his name,
He still repress'd my boldness . Soon the flame
Is kindled, and the victim's life-blood flows,
And sweet perfumes of sacrifice arose;
But as they wreath'd towards the azure sky,
Behold the angel of the Lord drew nigh,
And slowly rising with the incense-cloud
Flame-like ascended up to heaven. We bow'd

Our faces to the earth on bended knee,
And trembled at the sight exceedingly;
For when I saw the fiery track he trod,
This is, methought, none other than that God
Who spake to Noah and to Abraham,
And said to Moses, “I am that I am;”
Who led our fathers through the ocean deeps,
Which stood at His command in rock-like heaps ;
Who wrapt in clouds of darkness and of storm
Rent Sinai's cliffs before His viewless form;—
And could He our presumptive eye forgive,
Who threaten'd “None shall see My face and live”?

But then my wife's unwavering faith subdued
My struggling spirit's dark disquietude:
I could not tremble, when I look'd on her,
The mother of our land's deliverer:
And still I see in memory's vista now
The calm affiance of her cloudless brow.

And dost thou ask me who it was that came,
And rose celestial in that altar flame?
I shall behold Him, but not now—the Seed
Who, woman-born, shall bruise the serpent's head;
He whom the dying patriarch divine
Foretold should come of Judah's royal line;
Whom Balaam saw in vision from afar,
Israel's bright sceptre, Jacob's morning star:
Who dawning on this world of wreck and crime
In the ripe fulness of predestined time,
Not with such transitory beams of light
As only greet some favour'd prophet's sight,
But born albeit of no mortal birth,
Shall stand incarnate God upon the earth.

The old man paused awhile—his silent gaze
Seem'd rapt in far hopes of the latter days,
And mute his ear, as though the evening breeze
Grew vocal with angelic melodies,
The echo of that everlasting song
Which swells through all creation. But ere long

Back, as athirst for sympathy, he brought
His spirit from that glowing world of thought,
And with a deeper mellowness of tone,
As though communing with himself, spake on.

My child, my child, my loved and only son!
I weep not for thee, Samson: thou art one
Of that great army of the living God,
Who militant by faith to glory trod;
Who out of weakness valiant wax'd in fight,
And singly turn'd the alien camps to flight:
Still march they on, a mighty victor host
Whose foremost ranks the stream of death have cross'd,
And calmly resting, where the wicked cease
From troubling and the weary are at peace,
Await in bliss expectant, till the last
Lone band of faithful ones hath safely pass'd.
Enough for me, my Samson in his day
Bare a bright standard 'mid that vast array,
And heard, I doubt not, when his race was run,—
“Servant and soldier of the Lord, well done!”

I weep not for my child—I knew his star
Had mark'd him for the stormy ranks of war,
And read his future, when he lay at rest
A folded blossom on his mother's breast;
Who often bade me note his strength of limb,
And fondly ask'd, “Was ever babe like him?”
And when in after years upon my knee
He sate in childhood's playful prattling glee,
Still would he ask with beaming eye and face,
“Tell me some story of our fathers' race.”
But chief my words his mute attention caught,
What time I told how God for Israel fought,
When underneath the silent strokes of prayer
Proud Amalek was smitten with despair,
When Canaan's banded armies fled amain
Routed and ruin'd on Megiddo's plain,
When Deborah awoke her pæan song,
And Barak captive led captivity along.
But when I told how mighty Gideon rose
And saved our bleeding country from her foes,
Fronting the hosts of darkness and of death,
Clad in the panoply of prayer and faith

Invincible—it seem'd as though my child
Had found a kindred spirit—sternly he smiled,
And shook, as shakes the storm dark ocean's froth,
His unshorn locks in sign of kindling wrath,
And ask'd impatient if the hour drew nigh,
When he might likewise rush to strife and victory.

The Lord Jehovah bless'd him: and he grew,
As grows the lordly cedar, fed with dew
From heaven, and nourish'd by the early sun,
Upon the snowy peaks of Lebanon:
Soon swept the wild blasts o'er him, and the cloud
Of thunder and of storm his branches bow'd;
In vain—for, laughing at their idle shocks,
His strength was in the everlasting rocks:
And when bereft, beleaguer'd, and betray'd,
At length he fell, his vast and ruining shade
Its crushing devastation scatter'd wide
On Philistina in her hour of pride.

The Lord Jehovah bless'd him: few could brook
Of friends or foes, his calm defiant look,
And, though to us all grace and gentleness,
Few the high conflicts of his soul could guess.
Oh, how his mother loved him, how he loved
His angel mother!—I have seen him moved
To tears, whenever by our lonely hearth
She told the awful secret of his birth,
And with her folded hands besought that he
Might never shame his glorious destiny,
But without lingering thought of home or her
Be unto death our land's deliverer.

Years glided on apace;—with holy awe
His ripening strength we noted, and we saw
At times a lofty grandeur in his mien
Of high emprize, so tranquilly serene,
That told no human impulse moved his soul
Obedient . Under that divine control,

Upon the mountain heights companionless,
Or in the waste and howling wilderness,
Far off he wander'd, meditative, lone,
Musing stern deeds of vengeance all his own,
Or, burning with impatient hopes, began
To join his comrades in the camp of Dan.

Alas, he found no breast amid his peers
That shared his thoughts of glory. Crush'd by years
Of craven flight, or grinding servitude,
The lion heart of Israel was subdued,
All save his own unconquerable will,
That wrestled on in prayer and trusted still.

Alone he went to Timnath, inly driven—
But mark how fathomless the ways of Heaven!
There, as he lurk'd amid the laden vines,
He saw a daughter of the Philistines,
A virgin fair as light to look upon,
Who wander'd in the careless evening. One
She was, who, born of that accursed stock,
Grew as a heath-flower on the barren rock.

And Samson's spirit clave to hers;—but when
He sought impetuously our home again,
And told us of her alien race and name,
The full heart of his mother glow'd with shame,
And sternly spake she:—“Is there never one
“Of all the daughters of our kin, my son,
“Not one with whom in wedlock thou couldst dwell
“Of all the far-famed maids of Israel,
“That thou hast chosen out a stranger bride
“From our uncircumcised foes?” He sigh'd,
And look'd to heaven in silence; not a shade
Of earthly passion on his dark cheek play'd,
But hopes of battle and of victory
Wrought in his soul and kindled in his eye,
Till, as he turn'd and look'd on us and smiled,
The parents' spirit quail'd before their child;
Or rather in that Presence he adored,
Though then we knew not, all was of the Lord.

I know it now, I know it: thou hast seen
The planets glide along their path serene,

Diffusing softly their benignant light
Over the stillness of the summer night,
While steals from every pendant orb of gold
The music of their silence,—when behold
A meteor, with its dark forebodings blent,
Flames far athwart the troubled firmament,
And to the feeble ken of mortals mars
The changeless march and order of the stars;
But both, methinks, to His omniscient eye,
Who scans the cycles of eternity,
Pursue their destined path, and both fulfil
The fiat of His everlasting will.

And such was Samson's mission, as I deem'd,
Which then so dark and so mysterious seem'd,
For God was with him; wheresoe'er he press'd,
His spirit moved him, and His presence bless'd.
Bear witness, Timnath, when on love intent
A lion like a kid unarm'd he rent,
And from its swarming carcase subtly wrought
That deadly and disastrous riddle, fraught

With woe. Bear witness, widow'd Askelon,
Reft of thy children, God was with my son.
Bear witness, Etham's cloud-engirdled crest,
Where eagle-like he built his rocky nest
Aloft, alone, with God communing there
In solitary thought and secret prayer.
Bear witness of that hour, Philistia, when
Besieged by foes and faithless countrymen,
Arm'd only with the jaw-bone of an ass,
He fell'd thy choicest warriors like the grass,
And smote through brazen helms and plated mail
A thousand men in Ramath-Lehi's vale:
And when his spirit fail'd at eventide
Drank from the heaven-sent “well of him that cried .”

Yes, God the Lord was with him. His the might,
That braced his soul and nerved his arm in fight;
And His the fountain of exhaustless thought
That flow'd from Samson's rugged lips untaught,

When, at his bidding, with obedient feet,
All Israel throng'd around his judgment-seat.

Then all men call'd us blessed: peace again
Shed its rich plenty over hill and plain;
The fields were white with flocks; and, loved of God,
Again our land with milk and honey flow'd;
Age in his presence bow'd, and virgins young
With tabrets and with dance his triumphs sung,
And parents taught their infants' lips to frame
Their first fond blessings on our Samson's name.
A few short years of mirth and minstrelsy,
And, oh, the harrowing change to mine and me!
Our foes again victorious; and our child
Begirt by hatred, and by love beguiled,
Shorn of his Godlike strength, bereaved of sight
And freedom, in the dungeon's loathsome night,
The slave of slaves who mock'd his every sigh,
And sported with his only prayer—to die.
Woe for his mother, woe! the tidings crush'd
Her heart:—when forth companionless he rush'd

Singly a thousand warriors to assail,
I never saw her glowing cheek turn pale;
But when she heard upon that awful night,
“Thy Samson is no more a Nazarite,”
Long while she sate in speechless anguish there,
A mute and marble likeness of despair,
Till from her breaking heart these words found way,
“My God....” she struggled, but she could not pray—
“My husband”—and she shook in every limb,
“He hath abandon'd God, and God abandon'd him.”

But why retrace the story of his fall,—
Alas, too well, too widely known by all?
Delilah's arts;—his weakness warn'd in vain,
Thrice warn'd, thrice yielding to the slavish chain
Of venal Beauty's lying blandishment,
And still entangled when the snare was rent;—
That fatal couch;—that dark perfidious hour
When he betray'd his citadel of power:
The quenching of those eyes in endless night
No foe had ever dared to meet in fight;

The fetters forged his freeborn limbs around;
The fetid prison where with slaves he ground;
And, worst of all, the shouts of high acclaim
Before him raised to Dagon's cursed name.—
Enough: I bless the Hand that smote him now,
And taught him though with bitter tears to bow,
Until he learnt beneath the chastening rod
That he was only strong, while strong in God.

Hark! there are sounds of revelry and mirth.
There is a feast to Dagon; and the earth
Rings with the shout exultingly again
Of that far-echoing sacrificial strain:
See, Gaza's eager population waits
The opening of those massive temple gates.
He comes! he comes! on his triumphal car,
Deck'd with the gorgeous pageantries of war,
Is rear'd the hideous idol; one and all
Before their god in low prostration fall.
And hark again, those wild and dissonant cries
In proud defiance swelling to the skies—

“Hail, Dagon! thou hast fought for us and won!
“Hail, Dagon, hail! Where lies Manoah's son?
“Where is the God of Israel? let Him now
“Avenge His cause; and be our champion thou!”
Again the gates are closed, again the din
Rings through the joyous city. But within
Dispersed through courts and crowded galleries,
Whose spacious roof receives the welcome breeze,
Behold, the choicest of Philistia's peers,
The bloom of all her beauty: echoing cheers
Peel through the temple of the idol god,
And wine and jesting fill the vast abode,
Till in their impious merriment they call
For Samson's feats to crown their festival.

Hark yet again, one universal cry,
A ruin'd nation's groan of agony,
With wailing fills the vast of heaven:—again,
The dying shrieks of thousands from that fane:
Again—and Gaza holds her fearful breath,—
And all is mute as sleep, the sleep of death.

To Zorah's vale full soon the tidings sped,
Where lone I watch'd his mother's dying bed;
For ever since he fell Delilah's prey,
She like a flower had wither'd day by day,
Calm, tearless, uncomplaining, yet I knew
Her broken heart had found no healing dew.
But when her ear the hurried message caught,
That God deliverance by his death had wrought;
The banquet, and the shouts that rend the air,
His deeds of might, his last victorious prayer,
The pillars grasp'd and shaken to and fro,
The helpless agonizing cries of woe,
Until the temple's shatter'd roof and dome
Wrapt him and all in one terrific tomb;—
Then first a smile of glory on her cheek
Spoke of such bliss as language could not speak:
She raised her overflowing eyes to heaven,
And wept for joy, “My Samson is forgiven.”

My tale is told—too soon the sepulchre
That closed o'er Samson was unseal'd for her;

And I was left my nation's peace to see—
Peace which my child had won, though not for me:
Farewell! our circle gathers in the sky,
And as they died in faith, so would I die.

Banningham, 1850.

“The children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord; and the Lord delivered them into the hands of the Philistines forty years.”— Judg. xiii. 1.

“And his wife was barren, and bare not.”—Judg. xiii. 2.

Gen. xxx. 1.

Judg. xiii. 18: “Seeing it is secret;” margin, “wonderful.” Cf. Isa. ix. 6.

“The floods stood upright as an heap.”—Exod. xv. 8.

Exod. xxxiii. 20.

“Heaven ruining from heaven.” Par. Lost, vi. 868.

“The Spirit of the Lord began to move him at times in the camp of Dan.”—Judg. xiii. 25.

“He called the name thereof Enhakkore;” margin, “the well of him that cried.”—Judg. xv. 19.