Copy of Victorian manuscript Masonic poem, apparently unpublished, divided into 'Opening' ('Hail, Thou from whom all light is shed', '1st. Degree' ('Lo, here we meet in brotherhood') and '2nd. Degree' ('Brother, thou upon whose eyes').

2pp., folio. On two leaves of yellow paper, with 'PATENT' lion and unicorn watermark. Text enclosed within faint blue vertical lines. Good, on lightly aged and worn paper. No record found of the publication of this item, the first page of which is headed 'Opening: -', with the last section ending two thirds down the page, suggesting that it is complete. A rhymed poem of 36 lines: the first section consisting of 10 lines, the second of 16 lines, and the third of 10 lines. The 'Opening' reads: 'Hail, Thou from whom all light is shed, | Within whose beams we live and move, | Who guardest all the quick & dead, | And art the very source of love. | Hear us who meet in brotherhood | And dimly shape our lives, to be | A part of that which, pure and good, | Streams ever in broad floods from thee.' The item is from an American source, and the handwriting suggests America in the latter part of the nineteenth century, but there is no evidence of the source or date.