Page:The Hundred Best Poems (lyrical) in the English language - second series.djvu/90

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JOHN MILTON.

Slain by the bloody Piemontese, that roll'd
Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans

The vales redoubled to the hills, and they
To Heaven. Their martyr'd 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.

Palgrave's Text.


45.
Oh! Breathe not His Name.

OH! breathe not his name, let it sleep in the shade,
Where cold and unhonour'd his relics are laid:
Sad, silent, and dark, be the tears that we shed,
As the night-dew that falls on the grass o'er his head.

But the night-dew that falls, though in silence it weeps,
Shall brighten with verdure the grave where he sleeps;
And the tear that we shed, though in secret it rolls,
Shall long keep his memory green in our souls.


46.
Rich and Rare were the Gems She wore.
This ballad is founded upon the following anecdote:—
"The people were inspired with such a spirit of honour,

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