Classic Poem

Midst polar snows and solitude,
Eight weary years the voyager lies,
Ice-bound upon the frozen flood,
While expectation vanishes;
Ah! many a hopeless tear is shed
For Franklin, numbered with the dead!

Midst joys of home, and well earned fame,
Young, healthful, honored, there is one
Who pines to win a nobler name,
And feels his glory but begun;
His heart is with the voyager, lost
Midst polar solitude and frost.

The voice from off the frozen flood
Appeals in trumpet tones for aid;
'Tis heard, 'tis answered, — swift abroad
The flag is hung, the sail is spread;
That sail on whose pure face we see
Thy symbol, honored Masonry!

Away, on glorious errand, now,
Thou hero of a sense of right!
Success be on thy gallant brow,
Thou greater than the sons of might!
Thy flag, the banner of the free,
Oh, may it lead to victory!

Is there some chain of sympathy
Flung thus across the frozen seas?
Is there some strange, mysterious tie,
That joins these daring men? — there is!
This , honored, healthful, free from want,
Is bound to that in Covenant !

For though these twain have never met,
Nor pressed the hand, nor joined the heart,
In unison their spirits beat,
Brothers in the Masonic art; —
One , in the hour of joy and peace, —
One , in the hour of deep distress.

And by the S YMBOLS , best of those
Time-honored on our ancient wall,
And by the prayer that ceaseless flows,
Upward from every Mystic Hall, —
And by thine own stout heart and hand,
Known, marked, and loved in every land, —

Thou shalt succeed , — his drooping eye
Shall catch thy banner, broad and bright, —
That symbol he shall yet descry,
And know a Brother in the sight!
Ah, noble pair! which happier then,
Of those two daring, dauntless men?