Milton's sonnet "On the Late Massacre in Piedmont" (1655)
(John Milton, 1608-74)
- Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints,
whose bones
- Lie
scattered on the Alpine mountains cold;
- Even them
who kept thy truth so pure of old,
- When all our fathers worshiped stocks
and stones,
- Forget not: in thy book record
their groans
- Who were
thy sheep, and in their ancient fold
- Slain by
the bloody Piedmontese, that rolled
- Mother with infant down the
rocks. Their moans
- The vales redoubled to the hills, and
they
- To
heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow
- O'er all the Italian fields, where
still doth sway
- The
triple Tyrant; that from these may grow
- A
hundredfold, who, having learnt thy way,
- Early may
fly the Babylonian woe.