Monday, March 23, 2015

SONNET 18, written by John Milton, commemorating the persecution and massacre of the WALDENSES, by the Pope's armies, in the Piedmont Valleys, in the 1600's.

A
Avenge, O Lord, Thy slaughtered saints, whose bones
lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold,
E'vn 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 Piedmontese that rolled
Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans 
The vales redoubl'd 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 hundred-fold, who having learnt Thy way,
Early may fly the Babylonian woe.

**The book, THE ISRAEL OF THE ALPS, by Alexis Muston is well worth reading!

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