Masons are ours, Freemasons--but, alas! To their own bards I leave the mystic class; In vain shall one, and not a gifted man, Attempt to sing of this enlightened clan: I know no Word, boast no directing Sign, And not one Token of the race is mine; Whether with Hiram, that wise widow's son, They came from Tyre to royal Solomon, Two pillars raising by their skill profound, Boaz and Jachin through the east renown'd: Whether the sacred Books their rise express, Or books profane, 'tis vain for me guess: It may be lost in date remote and high, They know not what their own antiquity: It may be, too, derived from cause so low, They have no wish their origin to show: If, as Crusaders, they combine to wrest From heathen lords the land they long possess'd; Or were at first some harmless club, who made Their idle meetings solemn by parade; Is but conjecture--for the task unfit, Awe-struck and mute, the puzzling theme I quit: Yet, if such blessings from their Order flow, We should be glad their moral code to know; Trowels of silver are but simple things, And Aprons worthless as their apron-strings; But if indeed you have the skill to teach A social spirit, now beyond our reach; If man's warm passions you can guide and bind, And plant the virtues in the wayward mind; If you can wake to Christian love the heart, - In mercy, something of your powers impart. But, as it seems, we Masons must become To know the Secret, and must then be dumb; And as we venture for uncertain gains, Perhaps the profit is not worth the pains. When Bruce, that dauntless traveller, thought he stood On Nile's first rise, the fountain of the flood, And drank exulting in the sacred spring, The critics told him it was no such thing; That springs unnumber'd round the country ran, But none could show him where the first began: So might we feel, should we our time bestow, To gain these Secrets and these Signs to know; Might question still if all the truth we found, And firmly stood upon the certain ground; We might our title to the Mystery dread, And fear we drank not at the river-head. ---------------------