Sonnet XVIII
by John Milton

On the late Massacre in Piemont

Avenge, O Lord, Thy slaughtered saints, whose bones
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold;
Ev'n them who kept Thy truth so pure of old,
When all our fathers worshipped 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 Heav'n. Their martyred blood and ashes sow
O'er all th' Italian fields, where still doth sway
The triple tyrant; that from these may grow
A hundred-fold, who having learned Thy way
Early may fly the Babylonian woe.