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ANONYMOUS.

T

HE funniest story I ever heard,

The funniest thing that ever occurred,

Is the story of Mrs. Mehitable Byrde,

Who wanted to be a Mason.

Her husband, Tom Byrde, is a Mason true,

As good a Mason as any of you;

He is tyler of lodge Cerulian Blue,

And tyles and delivers the summons due,

And she wanted to be a Mason too—

This ridiculous Mrs. Byrde.

She followed him round, this inquisitive wife,

And nabbed and teased him half out of his life;

So to terminate this unhallowed strife,

He consented at last to admit her.

And first to disguise her from bonnet to shoon,

The ridiculous lady agreed to put on

His breech—ah! forgive me—I meant pantaloon;

And miraculously did they fit her.

The Lodge was at work on the Master's Degree;

The light was ablaze on the letter G;

High soared the pillars J. and B.;

The officers sat like Solomon, wise;

The brimstone burned amid horrid cries;

The goat roamed wildly through the room;

The candidate begged 'em to let him go home;

And the devil himself stood up in the east,

As proud as an alderman at a feast;—

When in came Mrs. Byrde.

Oh, horrible sounds! oh, horrible sight!

Can it be that Masons take delight

In spending thus the hours of night?

Ah! could their wives and daughters know

The unutterable things they say and do,

Their feminine hearts would burst with woe;

But this is not all my story,

For those Masons joined in a hideous ring,

The candidate howling like everything,

And thus in tones of death they sing

(The Candidate's name was Morey):

"Blood to drink and bones to crack,

Skulls to smash and lives to take,

Hearts to crush and souls to burn—

Give old Morey another turn,

And make him all grim and gory."

Trembling with horror stood Mrs. Byrde,

Unable to speak a single word;

She staggered and fell in the nearest chair,

On the left of the Junior Warden there,

And scarcely noticed, so loud the groans,

That the chair was made of human bones.

Of human bones! on grinning skulls

That ghastly throne of horror rolls—

Those skulls, the skulls that Morgan bore!

Those bones the bones that Morgan wore!

His scalp across the top was flung,

His teeth around the arms were strung—

Never in all romance was known

Such uses made of human bone.

The brimstone gleamed in lurid flame,

Just like a place we will not name;

Good angels, that inquiring came

From blissful courts, looked on with shame

And tearful melancholy.

Again they dance, but twice as bad,

They jump and sing like demons mad;

The tune is Hunkey Dorey—

"Blood to drink," etc., etc.

Then came a pause—a pair of paws

Reached through the floor, up sliding doors,

And grabbed the unhappy candidate!

How can I without tears relate

The lost and ruined Morey's fate?

She saw him sink in a fiery hole,

She heard him scream, "My soul! my soul!"

While roars of fiendish laughter roll,

And drown the yells of mercy!

"Blood to drink," etc., etc.

The ridiculous woman could stand no more—

She fainted and fell on the checkered floor,

'Midst all the diabolical roar.

What then, you ask me, did befall

Mehitable Byrde? Why, nothing at all—

She had dreamed she'd been in the Masons' hall.