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.
This is the month, and this the happy morn,
wherein the Son of heaven's eternal King,
of wedded Maid and Virgin Mother born,
our great redemption from above did bring.
How gladly would I meet mortality, my sentence, and be earth in sensible! How glad would lay me down, as in my mother's lap! There I should rest, and sleep secure.
Wealth and honours, which most men pursue, easily change masters; they desert to the side which excels in virtue, industry, and endurance of toil, and they abandon the slothful.