On The Death Of A Master Builder

Or Free Mason of High Rank

(Written by Request.)

Assembled this day on occasion of grief, We mourn the occasion, the loss of our chief; A Mason, our master, that built up a pile By the compass and square in the masonic style.

At the word of the Builder, who built All at first, Turned chaos to order, and darkness dispersed, Our architect leaves us, that mason so skilled, The fabric of virtue and freedom to build.

As far as this nature, called human, can go, A pattern he was of perfection below; By the line and the plummet he built up a wall, As firm as old time, and, we trust, not to fall.

By science enlightened, a friend to mankind, He came, for the purpose exactly designed; Like the Baptist of old, in the annals of fate, Precursor of all that is noble and great.

He thought it an honour the trowel to hold, And to be with the craft, as a brother enrolled: To the practice of virtue he knew they were bound Wherever a lodge or a mason is found.

Designed as he was, to excel and transcend, Yet he courted the titles of brother and friend, And these in the fabric of masons are more Than monarchs can give,--and which tyrants abhor.

With a patron like this, we are proud to prepare The stone and the mortar, our building to rear, And copy, from Him, who can make it endure, Who raised the first building, and keeps all secure.

In such a grand master all masons were blessed; The world and all masons his merits confessed; But now he is gone in new orbits to move And join the first builder of all things above.

From the edition of 1809.