Dim Eyes, deaf Ears, cold Stomach, shew
My dissolution is in view,
Eleven times seven near liv'd have I.
And now God calls I willing Die,
My Shuttle's shot, my Race is run,
My Sun is set, my Day is done.
My span is measured, Tale is told,
My Flower is faded and grown old.
My Dream is vanish'd, Shadows fled,
My Soul with Christ, my Body Dead,
Farewel dear Wife, Children and Friends,
Hate Heresie, make Blessed Ends,
Bear Poverty, live with good Men;
So shall we live with Joy agen.
Let men of God in Courts and Churches watch,
O're such as do a Toleration hatch,
Lest that ill Egg bring forth a Cockatrice
To poison all with Heresie and Vice.
If Men be left and otherwise Combine,
My epitaph's I DY'D NO LIBERTINE.

To the old Puritan, scowling to the last at any shade of difference from the faith to which he would willingly have been a martyr, a "Libertine" included all blasphemous doubters and defiers of current beliefs--Quakers, Antinomians and other pestilent people who had already set the Colony by the ears and were soon to accomplish much more in this direction. The verses were at once creed and protest, and are a fair epitome of the Puritan mind in 1650. Other rhymes from other hands had expressed equally uncompromising opinions. He had survived the anagramatic warning sent to him by an unknown hand in 1645, which still stands on the files of the first Church in Roxbury, and which may have been written by one of his opponents in the General Court.

THOMAS DUDLEY.

Ah! old must dye,
A death's head on your hand you need not weare;
A dying head you on your shoulders bear;
You need not one to mind you you must dye,
You in your name may spell mortalitye.
Young men may dye, but old men, these dye must,
'Twill not be long before you turn to dust.
Before you turn to dust! ah! must! old! dye!
What shall young men doe, when old in dust do lye?
When old in dust lye, what New England doe?
When old in dust do lye it's best dye too.

Death condoned these offences, and left only the memory of his impartial justice and his deep and earnest piety, and Morton wrote of him, what expressed the feeling even of his enemies: "His love to justice appeared at all times, and in special upon the judgement seat, without respect of persons in judgement, and in his own particular transactions with all men, he was exact and exemplary. His zeal to order appeared in contriving good laws and faithfully executing them upon criminal offenders, heretics and underminers of true religion. He had a piercing judgement to discover the wolf, though clothed with a sheepskin. His love to the people was evident, in serving them in a public capacity many years at his own cost, and that as a nursing father to the churches of Christ. He loved the true Christian religion, and the pure worship of God, and cherished as in his bosom, all godly ministers and Christians. He was exact in the practice of piety, in his person and family, all his life. In a word he lived desired, and died lamented by all good men."