Page:The works of Anne Bradstreet in prose and verse.djvu/451

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To the Memory of my deai' and ever honoured leather

Thomas Dudley Efq ;

Who decea/ed, ]u\y 31. 1653. and of his Ag-e, 77.

��73 Y duty bound, and not by cuftome led

^^ To celebrate the praifes of the dead,

My mournfuU mind, fore preft, in trembling verfe

Prefents my Lamentations at his Herfe,

Who was my Father, Guide, Inflrufter too.

To whom I ought whatever I could doe:

Nor is't Relation near my hand fhall tye;

For who more caufe to boaft his worth then 1/

Who heard or faw, obferv'd or knew him better?

Or who alive then I, a greater debtor?

Let malice bite, and env}' knaw its fill.

He was m}^ Father, and He praife him ftill.

Nor was his name, or life lead fo obfcure

That pitty might fome Trumpeters procure.

Who after death miijht make him falfly feem

Such as in life, no man could jultly deem.

Well known and lov'd, where ere he liv'd, by moft

Both in his native, and in foreign coalt,

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