Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889
A New England Gentlemans Epitaph
By Thomas Dudley (15761653)D
My dissolution is in view;
Eleven times seven near lived have I,
And now God calls, I willing die:
My shuttle ’s shot, my race is run,
My sun is set, my deed is done;
My span is measur’d, tale is told,
My flower is faded and grown old,
My dream is vanish’d, shadow ’s fled,
My soul with Christ, my body dead;
Farewell dear wife, children and friends,
Hate heresy, make blessed ends;
Bear poverty, live with good men,
So shall we meet with joy again.
O’er such as do a toleration hatch;
Lest that ill egg bring forth a cockatrice,
To poison all with heresy and vice.
If men be left, and otherwise combine,
My epitaph ’s, I dy’d no libertine.