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The triumphant royalist reaction of 1680, when the old serpent bruised the heel of freedom by totally crushing Puritanism, is singular in this, that the agonised cry of the beaten party has been preserved in a cotemporary monument, the intensest utterance of the most intense of English poets the Samson Agonistes.
It is impossible for anyone devoted to the study of "Paradise Lost," of "Comus," even of "Sampson Agonistes," and especially of "Il Pensoroso" and "L'Allegro," to doubt that their writer was carried away at times by the oestrum, or divine afflatus, although Dr Johnson discredits "these bursts of light, and involutions of darkness, these transient and involuntary excursions and retrocessions of invention."
And I count him less than that Blind Titan in Bardism, who, setting out to justify the ways of God to men, did verily justify the ways of fate to the Soul; and showed the old, old truth, so dear to the Celtic bards, that in the very depths of hell the Soul has not yet lost all her original brightness; but is mightily superior to hell, death, fate, sorrow and the whole pack of them; I count him less than the "Evening Dragon" of Samson Agonistes, whose last word to us is
I recall, among treasures thus gained, which have been precious to me ever since, in many a weary or sleepless hour on land and sea, extracts from Shakspere, parts of Milton's ``Samson Agonistes, and of his sonnets; Gray's ``Elegy, Byron's ``Ode to the Ocean, Campbell's ``What's Hallowed Ground? Goldsmith's ``Deserted Village, Longfellow's ``Psalm of Life, Irving's ``Voyage to Europe, and parts of Webster's ``Reply to Hayne.
A study of the pamphlets will show that the poet is all there, indeed only too openly for influence on opinion, and that the blighted hope of the patriot lends a secret pathos to Paradise Lost and Samson Agonistes. This other element in Milton is not accurately named Puritanism.
From amidst them forth he passed, Long way through hostile scorn, which he sustained Superior, nor of violence feared aught: And with retorted scorn his back he turned On those proud towers to swift destruction doomed. Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes were published in 1671.
The simplicity of Samson Agonistes is a flagging of the forces, a drying up of the rich sources from which had once flowed the golden stream of suggestive phrase which makes Paradise Lost a unique monument of the English language. I could almost fancy that the consciousness of decay utters itself in the lines
"God will relent, and quit thee all thy debt, Who ever more approves, and more accepts Him who imploring mercy sues for life, Than who self-rigorous chooses death as due, Which argues over-just, and self-displeased For self-offence, more than for God offended." Samson Agonistes. A fortnight or more has passed in severe toil, but not more severe than they have endured many a time before.
One was Paradise Regained. In this he shows how man's lost happiness was found again in Christ. Here is a second temptation, the temptation in the wilderness, but this time Satan is defeated, Christ is victorious. The second poem was Samson Agonistes, which tells the tragic story of Samson in his blindness. And no one reading it can fail to see that it is the story too of Milton in his blindness.
The three great poems 'Paradise Lost, 'Paradise Regained, and 'Samson Agonistes' are the utterance of his final period of solitary and Promethean grandeur, when, blind, destitute, friendless, he testified of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, alone before a fallen world."
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