THE DEACON'S LAMENT

Oh! I wish I’d looked after me ritual

I wish I had studied the book

I might have got through a few meetings

Without having to take a sly look

At the words printed all neat and tidy

With capital letters and dots

And inverted commas and rows of small hammers

To remind you about them there knocks.

If I’d just been to one Lodge rehearsal

And followed the DC’s grand plan

My signs might look more like a Mason and

less like a old tic tac man

For a Past Master once said with sarcasm

As he doffed his apron of blue

You lay five to one, when the lodge is begun

And evens the field when it’s through.

Time was, when I was a Deacon

I was proud of me wand and me Dove

Initiation was due, and I was in a right stew

So I wrote all me words on me glove.

Now some candidates are cool and collected

But mine he was nervous and hot

I don’t mean to boast, but his hand was like toast

Left me palm an illegible blot.

As I thumped the warden’s shoulder

The ink stained his coat a bright blue

He said “Whom have you there” I stood in despair

He could see I hadn't a clue

I gazed at me glove for an answer

At those five fickle fingers of fate

Then the blots rolled away, left the words plain as day

ST MICHAEL... ALL COTTON

... SIZE EIGHT