The Drawbridge Keeper

Drecker, a drawbridge keeper, opened wide
The dangerous gate to let the vessel through;
His little son was standing by his side,
Above Passaic River deep and blue,
While in the distance, like a moan of pain,
Was heard the whistle of the coming train.

At once brave Drecker worked to swing it back,
The gate-like bridge that seems a gate of death;
Nearer and nearer, on the slender track,
Came the swift engine, puffing its white breath.
Then, with a shriek, the loving father saw
His darling boy fall headlong from the draw!

Either at once down in the stream to spring
And save his son, and let the living freight
Rush on to death, or to his work to cling,
And leave his boy unhelped to meet his fate-
Which should he do? Were you as he was tried,
Would not your love outweigh all else beside?

And yet the child to him was full as dear
As yours may be to you-the light of eyes,
A presence like a brighter atmosphere,
The household star that shone in love's mild skies-
Yet, side by side with duty stern and grim,
Even his child became as naught to him.

For Drecker, being great of soul and true,
Held to his work and did not aid his boy,
Who, in the deep, dark water, sank from view.
Then from the father's life went forth all joy;
But, as he fell back pallid from his pain,
Across the bridge in safety shot the train.

And yet the man was poor, and in his breast
Flowed no ancestral blood of king or lord;
True greatness needs no title and no crest
To win from men just honor and reward!
Nobility is not of rank, but mind,
And is inborn and common in our kind.

He is most noble whose humanity
Is least corrupted: to be just and good
The birthright of the lowest born may be.
Say what we can, we are one brotherhood,
And, rich or poor, or famous or unknown,
True hearts are noble, and true hearts alone.

Now, through the crowded amphitheater,
Sounded a herald flourish loud and clear.
A breeze of expectation seemed to stir.
The unkempt sunnyside sent up a cheer.
With wicked-looking horns and sullen mien,
The black bull, Moro, entered on the scene.

This was the bull of which the placards said,
A maiden would subdue his utmost rage,
Unless, in the attempt, her blood were shed.
Did not all Cadiz know the formal page?
And Moro greeted, with a thundrous roar,
The ruthless, living hill he lowered before.

And once by his tormentors he was met:
Capas before him shook their teasing cloth;
Banderillëros in his shoulders set
Their cruel darts; and when he rushed, right wroth,
Upon a yellow challenge waved with jeers,
The picadorës pricked him with their spears.

Against the nearest picador he turned
And lifted horse and rider from the ground.
Thus three good horses had he gored, and spurned
Infuriate, when quietly around
Withdrew the fighters, proud of courage shown,
And left the bull, in his fierce rage, alone.

Then fell a rill of music, pearl on pearl,
And straightway into the arena sprang
A tawny, Andalusian peasant-girl,
Pretty and breathing charm; she sweetly sang,
Advancing toward the bull with fearless joy,
Then, pausing, ceased and cried, 'Moro! Ya voy!'

Of glad Espara she, and she had fed,
Petted and cared for Moro happy years.
But when of late she heard it lightly said
That he must grace th' arena, full of tears
She sought authority and gained the right
To save his life, if in this wise she might.

Amidst the wide, hushed amphitheater,
At the first piping of the bird-like voice,
Moro had quelled his fury, and seeing her,
The girl, his friend, he seemed quite to rejoice.
And when beside him she had come to stand,
With his mute tongue he licked her loving hand.

Her voice and presence soothing every smart,
He knelt before her as she stroked his head.
She, bending over, soon removed each dart,
With tearful pity; then, joy-garlanded,
Her arm around his neck, and all elate,
She, smiling, led him toward the torril's gate.

The sun-bronzed Arabs, living at the base
Of Karnak's mighty ruin, see in it
The work of no man's hand. They cannot think
Its lofty beauty and majestic form,
So awe-begetting, even in decay,
Are the unaided deed of their own kind.
But, as most men are wont, when sharply faced
By problems that they do not understand,
The squalid Arabs, quite too ignorant
To seek in natural causes for a key,
Exalt their case to the miraculous
And supernatural, and so believe
That monstrous genii, in antiquity,
To please the holder of some magic ring,
Built Karnak in a night!

All governments,
Books, customs, buildings, railways, ships, and all
The stark realities that men have made,
Are but imagination's utterances.
The invisible speaks in the visible,
And over all, the high, far-reaching thoughts
Of great imaginations domineer.
First of the Magi, Zoroaster yet
Colors the Western theosophic mind,
Besides the minds of Asian myriads.
Nor have his genii lost hold on men;
But are an explanation, in the East,
Of architectural victories, which appear
Beyond the power of human hands to win.

But we, of higher credence, think not so.
Of larger literature and ampler range,
We know the same full-browed intelligence,
The same Masonic wisdom, that upreared
High-girdled Babylon and purple Tyre
And built the Temple of King Solomon,
Built also the sepulchral Pyramids,
Build Philæ, hundred-gated Thebes, and all
Those works stupendous, whose calm grandeur yet
Shows the departed glory of the Nile.

It scarce seems longer past than yesterday
That men undid the brazen clamps which held
Upon its pedestal the Obelisk-
That ray-like shaft, which Thutmes raised at On
To grace the Temple of the Setting Sun-
And found Masonic emblems there bestowed.
Such useful emblems have been found withal
In prehistoric ruins Mexican.
If other clue were needed to connect
Our modern Craft with builders of the past,
We have the evidence of what we know,-
That nothing can be operative long
And not be speculative too; for Use
Is more than manual. Intelligence
Must see the ideal in the real, and clothe
Upon the impalpable and naked truth
The palpable resemblance; it must needs
Behold in all that is material,
External, the express embodiment,
Or signature, of far more lasting things,
Which are internal, spiritual.

Swedenborg,
Upon the other worlds of heaven and hell,
His ideality imposed, and strove
To picture them, the universe and God,
Using the splendid words of holy writ
As signs and tokens of the mysteries
That, in imagination, he beheld.
But not so far the wise Freemason dares.
In square and compasses, in setting-maul,
And in the other stated working-tools
Used by the Craft, he sees an ideal use.
To him they are the emblems of such things
As have been found alike in every soul
And make the world fraternal.

Symbolism
Is the rich blood and life of Masonry.
A symbol is the solid link between
The real and the ideal. It must be
That man himself, the crown of earthly things,
Made in his Maker's image, is the true,
The only symbol of the Power Divine.
It follows that sublime Freemasonry
And heaven-born, strong-pinioned Poetry
Are one at heart; for, whatsoever be
Sincere, commensurate, symbolical,
Is native of the Muse-her work. To think
In symbols is imagination's house.
So the fast hold which Masonry has kept
Upon the minds of men for centuries-
For long millenniums-is, in truth, the same
As that of Poetry. For Poetry
Drank from the fountain of immortal youth,
Then rose in beauty, like the Morning Star,
And lit the holy, intellectual fire,
Guide of our faith and practice, that is laid
Upon Masonic altars.

When expressed
In buildings she is seen, as in the tree
The hamadryad, we but change her name,
And Architecture nominate the Muse.
But the broad tenets, on whose soil is based
Our Ancient Order, are a fertile land,
And all the arts and sciences alike
Find in it healthful sustenance, and, nursed
In genial sunshine and condensate dew,
Burst into bloom and yield abundant fruits.