Kansas City Lodge #220
Ancient, Free, and Accepted Masons
903 Harrison Street, Kansas City, Missouri 64106-3030

Stories and Poems

This page is dedicated to the words some brothers have used to capture ideas we all can understand.

The Palace

by Rudyard Kipling

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 ground-works grew,
I tumbled his quoins and his ashlars, and cut and reset them anew.
Lime I milled of his marbles; 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 foundations the heart of that builder's heart.
As he had risen and pleaded, so did I understand
The form of the dream he had followed in the face of the thing he had planned.

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 other's -- 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 abandoned to the faith of the faithless years.
Only I cut on the timber -- only I carved on the stone:
"After me cometh a Builder. Tell him, I too have known!"

Last night I knelt where Hiram knelt

Last night I knelt where Hiram knelt
And took an obligation.
Today I'm closer to my God
And I'm a Master Mason.

Tho' heretofore my fellow men
Seemed each one like the other,
Today I search each one apart'
"I'm looking for my Brother."

And, as I feel his friendly grip,
It fills my heart with pride;
I know that while I'm on the square,
That he is on my side.

His footsteps on my errand go
If I should such require;
His prayers will plead in my behalf
If I should so desire.

My words are safe within his breast
As though within my own;
His hand forever at my back
To help me safely home.

Good counsel whispers in my ear
And warns of any danger;
By Square and Compass, Brother now!
Who once would call me stranger.

I might have lived a moral life
And risen to distinctions
Without my brother's helping hand
And fellowship of Masons.

But God, who knows how hard it is
To resist life's temptations,
Knows why I knelt where Hiram knelt
And took that obligation.

"I see you've travelled some."

Wherever you may chance to be--Wherever you may roam,
Far away in foreign lands; Or just at Home Sweet Home;
It always gives you pleasure, it makes your heart strings hum
Just to hear the words of cheer,
"I see you've travelled some."

When you get a brother's greeting, And he takes you by the hand,
It thrills you with a feeling that you cannot understand,
You feel that bond of brotherhood that tie that's sure to come
When you hear him say in a friendly way
"I see you've travelled some."

And if you are a stranger, In strange lands all alone
If fate has left you stranded--Dead broke and far from home,
It thrills you--makes you dumb, When he says with a grip of fellowship,
"I see you've travelled some."

And when your final summons comes, To take a last long trip,
Adorned with Lambskins Apron White and gems of fellowship--
The Tiler at the Golden Gate, With Square and Level and Plumb
Will size up your pin and say "Walk In",

"I see you've traveled some."