He scarce had ceased when the superior Fiend Was moving toward the shore: his ponderous shield, Etherial temper, massy, large and round, Behind him cast; the broad circumference Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb Through optic glass the Tuscan artist[125] views At evening from the top of Fesole,[126] Or in Valdamo, to descry new lands, Rivers or mountains on her spotty globe. His spear (to equal which the tallest pine Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast Of some great ammiral, were but a wand) He walked with, to support uneasy steps Over the burning marle, not like those steps On heaven's azure; and the torrid clime Smote on him sore beside, vaulted with fire. Nathless he so endured, till on the beach Of that inflamed sea he stood, and called His legions, angel-forms, who lay entranced Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades High over-arched embower, or scattered sedge Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion armed Hath vexed the Red Sea coast, whose waves o'erthrew Busiris and his Memphian chivalry, While with perfidious hatred they pursued The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld From the safe shore their floating carcasses And broken chariot-wheels: so thick bestrewn, Abject and lost lay these, covering the flood, Under amazement of their hideous change. [Footnote 125: Galileo.] [Footnote 126: A hill near Florence.] ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN PIEDMONT.[127] 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 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 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,[128] that from these may grow A hundred-fold, who, having learnt thy way, Early may fly the Babylonian woe.[129] [Footnote 127: This sonnet refers to the persecution instituted in 1655 by the Duke of Savoy against the Vaudois Protestants.] [Footnote 128: The Pope, who wore the triple crown or tiara.] [Footnote 129: The Papacy, with which the Protestant reformers identified Babylon the Great, the "Scarlet Woman" of Revelation.] SIR THOMAS BROWNE. THE VANITY OF MONUMENTS. [From _Urn Burial_]