The Universal Reciter. Various

      Am I entombed alive? Horrible fate!

      I sink—I faint beneath the bare conception!

      [Awakes.] Darkness? Where am I? I remember, now,

      This is a bag of ducats—'tis no dream—

      No dream! The trap-door fell, and here am I

      Immured with my dear gold—my candle out—

      All gloom—all silence—all despair! What, ho!

      Friends! Friends? I have no friends. What right have I

      To use the name? These money-bags have been

      The only friends I've cared for—and for these

      I've toiled, and pinched, and screwed—shutting my heart

      To charity, humanity and love!

      Detested traitors! Since I gave you all—

      Aye, gave my very soul—can ye do naught

      For me in this extremity? Ho! Without there!

      A thousand ducats for a loaf of bread!

      Ten thousand ducats for a glass of water!

      A pile of ingots for a helping hand!

      Was that a laugh? Aye, 'twas a fiend that laughed

      To see a miser in the grip of death.

      Offended Heaven, have mercy! I will give

      In alms all this vile rubbish; aid me thou

      In this most dreadful strait! I'll build a church—

      A hospital! Vain, vain! Too late, too late!

      Heaven knows the miser's heart too well to trust him!

      Heaven will not hear! Why should it? What have I

      Done to enlist Heaven's favor—to help on

      Heaven's cause on earth, in human hearts and homes?

      Nothing! God's kingdom will not come the sooner

      For any work or any prayer of mine.

      But must I die here—in my own trap caught?

      Die—die? and then! Oh, mercy! Grant me time—

      Thou who canst save—grant me a little time,

      And I'll redeem the past—undo the evil

      That I have done—make thousands happy with

      This hoarded treasure—do Thy will on earth

      As it is done in Heaven—grant me but time!

      Nor man nor God will heed my shrieks! All's lost!

SHE WOULD BE A MASON.

       Table of Contents

      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