History & Politics
On the Late Massacre in Piedmont
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 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 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 hundredfold, who having learnt thy way
Early may fly the Babylonian woe.
Codex Note
Milton’s furious sonnet on the 1655 slaughter of the Waldensians is public poetry as both prayer and protest. The martyrs’ scattered ashes become seed: persecution, he insists, will multiply a hundredfold the faith it meant to destroy.
Cite this poem
MLA
Milton, John. “On the Late Massacre in Piedmont.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/milton/3/.
Chicago
Milton, John. “On the Late Massacre in Piedmont.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/milton/3/.
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