Table of Contents

The Mystic Art

The world may rail at Masonry,
And scoff at Square and Line,
We'll follow with complacency
The Master's great Design.

A King can make a gartered Knight,
And breathe away another,
But he, with all his skill and might,
Can never make a Brother.

This power alone, thou Mystic Art,
Freemasonry, is thine;
The power to tame the savage heart
With brother-love divine!

Reprinted from A Treasury of Masonic Thought,
ed. by Carl Glick. Thomas Crowell Co., N.Y.: 1953. p. 164.

The same poem as above, but a longer version. The last line, second verse, was "...quench the..." instead of "...quest for...", but that sounded too much like a typo.
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Ode To Freemasonry

The world may rail at Masonry,

And scoff the square and line;

We'll follow with complacency

The Master's great design.

And though our sisters frown, and though

We're by our mothers chided,

Could they our works and hearts but know,

We would not be derided.

And though the kings of earth unite

Our temple to assail,

While armed with truth, and love, and light,

O'er them we shall prevail.

A cloud may veil the face of day,

But nature smiles at one

That should adventure, bold essay!

To quest for glorious sun!

A king can make a gartered knight,

And breathe away another;

But he, with all his skill and might,

Can never make a Brother.

This power alone, thou Mystic Art,

Freemasonry, is thine!

The power to tame the savage heart

With brother love divine.

from The Freemasons' Monthly Magazine, Jan., 1868

Baron Edward George Earle Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873)

This is condensed from a slightly longer bio on Bro. Bulwer-Lytton at the British Columbia & Yukon website.

Yes, this was the writer of "It was a dark and stormy night." Edward was a prolific Victorian novelist, editor of the New Monthly Magazine, member of Parliament and Secretary of State for the Colonies. Besides "It was a dark and stormy night...", the opening line to his 1830 novel Paul Clifford, he also coined such expressions as "the great unwashed" and the phrase "the pen is mightier than the sword."

May 25, 1803 - January 18, 1873