The Mother-Lodge

• There was Rundle, Station Master,
• An’ Beazeley of the Rail,
• An’ ‘Ackman, Commissariat,
• An’ Donkin’ o’ the Jail;
• An’ Blake, Conductor-Sargent,
• Our Master twice was ‘e,
• With ‘im that kept the Europe-shop,
• Old Framjee Eduljee.


• Outside — “Sergeant! Sir! Salute! Salaam!”
• Inside — “Brother”, an’ it doesn’t do no ‘arm.
• We met upon the Level an’ we parted on the Square,
• An’ I was Junior Deacon in my Mother-Lodge out there!


• We’d Bola Nath, Accountant,
• ’ Saul the Aden Jew,
• An'Din Mohammed, draughtsman'
• Of the Survey Office too;
• There was Babu Chuckerbutty,
• ’ Amir Singh the Sikh,
• ’ Castro from the fittin’-sheds,
• The Roman Catholick!


• We ‘adn’t good regalia,
• An’ our Lodge was old an’ bare,
• But we knew the Ancient Landmarks,
• An’ we kep’ ’em to a hair;
• An’ lookin’ on it backwards
• It often strikes me thus,
• There ain’t such things as infidels,
• Excep’, per’aps, it’s us.


• For monthly, after Labour,
• We'd all sit down and smoke
• (We dursn’t give no banquits,
• Lest a Brother’s caste were broke),
• An’ man on man got talkin’
• Religion an’ the rest,
• An’ every man comparin’
• Of the God ‘e knew the best.


• So man on man got talkin’,
• An’ not a Brother stirred
• Till mornin’ waked the parrots
• An’ that dam’ brain-fever-bird;
• We’d say ’twas ‘ighly curious,
• An’ we’d all ride ‘ome to bed,
• With Mo’ammed, God, an’ Shiva
• Changin’ pickets in our ‘ead.


• Full oft on Guv’ment service
• This rovin’ foot ‘ath pressed,
• An’ bore fraternal greetin’s
• To the Lodges east an’ west,
• Accordin’ as commanded
• From Kohat to Singapore,
• But I wish that I might see them
• In my Mother-Lodge once more!


• I wish that I might see them,
• My Brethren black an’ brown,
• With the trichies smellin’ pleasant
• An’ the hog-darn passin’ down,
• An’ the old khansamah snorin’
• On the bottle-khana floor
• a Master in good standing
• With my Mother-Lodge once more!


• Outside — “Sergeant! Sir! Salute! Salaam!”
• Inside — “Brother”, an’ it doesn’t do no ‘arm.
• We met upon the Level an’ we parted on the Square,
• An’ I was Junior Deacon in my Mother-Lodge out there!

The Palace
(From his Collected Verse)

• When I was a King and a Mason-
• A Master Proven and skilled-
• I cleared me ground for a Palace
• Such as a King should build.
• I decreed and dug down to my levels;
• Presently, under the silt,
• I came on the wreck of a Palace,
• Such as a King had built.


• There was no worth in the fashion-
• There was no wit in the plan;
• Hither and thither, aimless,
• The ruined footings ran.
• Masonry, brute, mishandled,
• But carven on every stone,
• ” After me cometh a Builder;
• Tell him I, too, have. Known.”


• Swift to my use in my trenches
• Where my well-planned groundworks grew,
• I tumbled his quoins and his ashlars
• And cut and rest them anew.
• Lime I milled of his
• Burned it, slacked it, and spread;
• Taking and leaving at pleasure
• The gifts of the humble dead.


• Yet, I despised not nor gloried
• Yet, as we wrenched them apart
• I read in the razed foundation
• The heart of that builder’s heart.
• As he has risen and pleaded,
• So did I understand
• The form of the dream he had followed


• When I was a King and a mason,
• In the open noon of my pride,
• They sent me a Word from the Darkness-
• They whispered and called me aside.
• They said, “The end is forbidden."
• they said, “thy use is fulfilled,
• Thy palace shall stand as that others-
• the spoil of a king who shall build."


• I called my men from my trenches,
• My quarries, my wharves, and my sheers;
• All I had wrought I abandonded
• To the faith of the faithless years,
• Only I carved on the stone:
• ” After me cometh a Builder;
• Tell him I, too, have known!”