John Winthrop’s folk came to Boston’s land
To worship freely, as they had planned.
From persecution they sailed away
To safety by Massachusetts Bay.
But of the liberty they had won,
To other people they offered none,
So if a different way you’d believe,
You had two choices: To die or leave.

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The Puritans lived for purity.
Their greatest danger was heresy.
But Mary said worship should be free,
And so she had to die.
But hangings cannot kill liberty
Nor end defiance of tyranny,
For she did hang as a flag to see
And take example by.

When Mary Dyer took up the call
That said the truth could be known by all,
The Puritans said she had to go,
For truth was clergy’s alone to know.
Then she gave birth to a stillborn child,
Which Winthrop cursed in a sermon wild,
And said misfortune just underscored
Her great disfavor before the Lord.

Refrain

So Mary trusted in Providence,
With Roger Williams she traveled hence
And joined the Society of Friends,
Who knew the power a free mind lends.
She learned to follow the Inner Light
And find the guidance to learn the right.
And from that guidance she came to learn
To Boston city she must return.

Instrumental break

She came again and again to preach,
Though Boston exiled her for such speech.
She was arrested. The judge, he said
That for her preaching she’d hang till dead.
They’d let her go if she would consent
To cease her errors and to repent,
But her belief she would not deny,
So Mary Dyer then had to die.

Refrain

She said, “Repeal your unrighteous law,”
And in the end, Boston’s people saw
No power is strong enough to bind
The courage of a free human mind.
And Massachusetts would later hear
From Samuel Adams and Paul Revere
That human beings should all be free,
And take the cause up for liberty.

Refrain