Friends ever dear, begin the opening lay;
Chant ye of joys that none but Masons know;
Heart answering heart, love's secret power display,
Gain from our rites a blessing ere you go.
Love reigneth here, — Love reigneth here;
Hate has the rule without,
But love reigneth here.

See! the Sun is sinking
Day is closing fast
Twilight's pensive-thinking
Hours will soon be past:
Love's first Pilgrim sighing
Starts to hear the bell
Which to day-light dying
Tolls a last farewell:
Vesper's hymn is stealing
O'er the charmed air
Every form is kneeling
Every sound is prayer.

Thus 'mid all that's dearest
Would I sink to rest
Like that bright Star nearest
To the drooping West:
Let not Love bewail me,
'Twould but wound my ear
When my senses fail me
Be thou only near;

I love to see the fading leaf
I joy to note the withering tree
For cold neglect and scorn and grief
Have wasted me.

I love to hear the sullen wind,
I love to watch the rising wave
Beneath whose swell I soon shall find
A peaceful grave!

I love to see the surges beat
Around this insulated rock
That spurns them proudly from his feet
Nor feels the shock.

Here will I watch the gathering storm
And listen to the sea-birds cry
'Till night envelopes every form
From mortal eye.

Some men there are, called holy, who retire
To dreary deserts from the world away,
Who scourge the flesh, and meditate and pray,
And for each earthly thought do penance dire
Until all human sympathies expire;
Who sacrifice God's precious gifts and say
That from the bitter ashes, dead and gray,
Shall spring the glowing flames of sacred fire.
But cold the ashes are, no flames arise.
When hearts are dead no fervent pulse can beat,
No warm blood flow. Oh, fools are they, and blind,
Who, scorning earth, think thus to scale the skies!

Fret not if fateful bar
Cause Love's delay,
Nor if some baleful star
Cross love alway.
Love crossed is better far
Than Love's decay.

Love hidden in the breast
Is hoarded gold;
By brooding thought caressed
It ne'er grows old.
Love satisfied, at rest,
Oft waxes cold.

We pity those who part
To meet no more;
We sorrow for the smart,
The aching sore;
The joined, yet twain of heart,
Need pity more.

Two sit at table, where
Love once said grace;
A bond yet holds them there,

Silent was man and brute,
And the Heavens and Earth and Sea,
The very winds in their caves were mute,
And the Moon watched silently.
Shrouded by Night in her sable vest
Love's vigils alone we kept
The world was all but ourselves at rest
And mutely we sighed and kissed and pressed
For with us even language slept.

O when shall I with my own Lenore
Love's dear delight in liberty renew?
Has pitying Fate indeed such joy in store?
Laurels, and lyre, and bashfulness adieu!

I burn, but love thee not,
False one! and cruel too —
More worthy far to be forgot,
Than loved by one so true,
No more my grief thy boast shall prove
Nor my heart bleed anew.
I burn — but 'tis with Rage not Love!

Hark, 'tis the voice of the long-parted years!
An hundred generations, joining tongues
From every land to swell the choral song,
While angels bear it to the throne of God.

Where'er the patient dead lie waiting for
The Resurrection trump, their very graves
Are vocal with thy imagery divine,
That speaks the language of Freemasonry.

The living, loving groups in mystic round,
Whisper those words their fathers knew and loved;
While kindled eye and burning heart confess
That time but strengthens thee, Freemasonry.

I kept a beggar's hut till Love
Knocked at my sullen door;
I knew not what a spirit then
Footed that earthen floor.

No lights were in his tangled hair,
His bare feet bled with cold,
But all his frail hands chanced upon
Flamed into sudden gold.