Back to Index

On the Late Massacre in Piemont

by John Milton, 1909

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 Piemontese, 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.

Published in The Complete Poems of John Milton
Tags:

Any corrections or public domain poems I should have here? Email me at poems (at) this domain.