The Essence of Masonry

Not the fictions of Greece, not the dreams of old Rome, Shall with visions mislead, or with meteors consume; No Pegasus' wings my short soarings misguide, Nor raptures false lull me on Helicon's side; All clouds now dissolve, from the east beams the day, Truth rises in glory and wakens the lay; The eagle-ey'd muse sees the light from the grove, With a song to Free-masons of friendship and love. Inspir'd by the theme the divinity flies, And thron'd on a rainbow before her arise, Past, present, and future, in splendid array, In masonic succession their treasures display; She views murder'd merit by ruffian-hand fall, And the grave gives its dead up at fellowships call, While the craft by their badges their innocence prove, And the song of free-masons is friendship and love. From those ages remote see the muse spreads her way, To join in the glory the present display; In freedom and friendship she sees the true band With virtue and splendour illumine the land; Religion's pure beams break the vapours of night, And from darkness mysterious the word gives the light, While lodges below, as the choirs from above, Join the song of free-masons in friendship and love, That the future might keep what the present bestows, In rapture prophetic the cherub arose; As he sung thro' the skies angels echoed the sound, And the winds bore the notes to the regions around. His sentiments then let our song still retain. 'Twas that masons may ever true lustre maintain, And 'till time be no more our strict union should prove, That the end of free-masonry's friendship and love.