Classic Poem

The Old is better: is it not the plan
By which the WISE , in by-gone days, contrived
To bind in willing fetters man to man,
And strangers in a sacred nearness lived?
Is there in modern wisdom aught like that
Which, midst the blood and carnage of the plain,
Can calm man's fury, mitigate his hate,
And join disrupted friends in love again?

No! for three thousand years the smiles of Heaven,
Smiles on whose sunbeams comes unmeasured joy,
To this thrice-honored Cement have been given,
This B OND , this C OVENANT , this sacred T IE .
It comes to us full laden; from the tomb
A countless host conspire to name its worth,
Who sweetly sleep beneath th' A CACIA'S bloom;
And there is naught like Masonry on earth.

Then guard the venerable relic well;
Protect it, Masters, from th' unholy hand;
See that its emblems the same lessons tell
Sublime through every age and every land;
Be not a line erased; the pen that drew
These matchless tracings was the P EN D IVINE . —
Infinite Wisdom best for mortals knew —
G OD will preserve intact the G RAND D ESIGN .