Poetry in a Masonic Vein

Initiation Degrees

No man, unless he has died, and learned to be alone
will ever come into touch.

Free Verse

Three candles burn in darkened room,
Three candles lighting the Sacred Book
The square and compasses, the level and the plum.
While round about the neophyte,
The brethren stand and vow to keep
Him company upon the journey East
In quest of wisdom and a caring heart.
For the call is out for builders by the line and rule,
To build on earth a house of light
Adorned with love and human dignity.

Raising

On Saint John Eve the Craft are keen
  and lucid in the winter's cold,
As round about the altar stone
  the signs are given as of old.

The ancient circle's silver turns
  and heirophantic sights we see,
Golden the triple tapers burn
  to light the eyes of Masons free.

Into the earth the light is cast,
  one word, it becomes another.
And out of the dust is lifted
  ep' pente our new-found Brother.

Recovery

Solemn strike of foot on rock,
A line of workers stretching out of sight
Over a hill, toward a hill moving.
The hope is gone, died with a word, Yes, that was his jewel.
Died for a word as well.

The declining sun throws great rock-twisted shadows
  of the workers across the land as they carry him.
It would be easier to mourn if the footing were more
  steady--if the smell of death were less pronounced.

But there was nothing ever easy about the man--
Not in life, not in work, not in death.
He drove himself, or was driven, maybe, by something
  bigger than himself.
There is little rest for a man who builds a house for God.

The Point Within the Circle

The point of the compass pierces the plane,
  a central mark to firmly intend
the axis true that all around
  an unbroken flow of ink will bend.

The surface welcomes the cunning steel,
  Precisely the arm extends its throw.
With gentle art is inscribed the arc
  first slowly, now fast, and again slow.

Finally the line to itself is joined
  into an infinite, glittering band --
the compass lifts and is folded away
  by an invisible, eternal hand.

Khuram

Born twice, buried thrice,
  the master cursed and blessed;
the word, secured forever --
  a substitute for the rest.

The Struggle for Freedom

The Ancient Wrong rules many a land, whose groans
  Rise swarming to the stars by day and night,
Thronging with mournful clamour round the thrones
  Where the Archangels sit in God's great light,
And, pitying, mourn to see that Wrong still reigns,
  And tortured Nations writhe in galling chains.

From Hungary and France fierce cries go up
  And beat against the portals of the skies;
Lashed Italy still drinks the bitter cup,
  And Germany in abject stupor lies;
The knout on Poland's bloody shoulders rings,
  And Time is all one jubilee of kings.

It will not be so always. Through the night
  The suffering multitudes with joy descry
Beyond the ocean a great beacon-light,
  Flashing its rays into their starless sky,
And teaching them to struggle and be free, --
  The Light of Order, Law, and Liberty.

Take heart, ye bleeding Nations; and your chains
  Shall shiver like thin glass. The dawn is near,
When Earth shall feel, through all her aged veins
  The new blood pouring; and her drowsy ear
Hear Freedom's trumpet ringing in the sky,
  Calling her braves to conquer or to die.

Arm and revolt, and let the hunted stags
  Against the lordly lions stand at bay! --
Each pass, Thermoplæ, and all the crags,
  Young Freedom's fortresses! -- and soon the day
Shall come when Right shall rule, and round the thrones
  that gird God's feet shall eddy no more groans.

The Bridge Builder

Pontifices the Romans named
  Their priests: Bridge Builders; for they wrought
A bridge 'twixt Gods and Mortals, framed
  Of rite and legend, deed and thought.
Bridge Builder in a later year
  Am I, who, seeking still the true,
With woven words essay to rear
  A bridge between the old and new.
Far off, across the stream of time,
  The light of ancient Hellas gleams;
And latter ages, less sublime,
  Are guided by those distant beams.
Between, as black as midnight sea,
  Ages of darkness roll their tides.
By that dim waste the light may be
  Obscured, but still the light abides.
The light that shone in ancient Greece
  Shall in our times once more arise,
And match the younger years' increase
  With vaster worlds in vaster skies.
I do but strive, in night and storm,
  To stretch a slender span aright.
Let those a firmer fabric form
  Who labour in the morning light!
For still the wildered wanderer needs
  To reach the light that shines afar,
Where, through the storm of warring creeds,
  Truth gleameth as a guiding star.

The Light of the Crypt

Out of a realm of a faded trace;
In the misty spheres of Time and Space;
Out of a day when the World was young;
Like a flaming ray from a taper flung
There comes a Light--nor faint nor dim:
'Neath the outstretched wings of the Cherubim;
A Light that lay in the dark embrace
Of the Crypt beneath the Temple's place;
Where springing arches guarded well
The proxy-Ark of Israel;
The while the Giblim sentry stand,
With the Sword and Trowel in either hand.

Long wrought the Sons of Gebal there,
With the ringing clink of chisel and square;
To form its founding, broad and deep,
While prying eyes were closed in sleep:
Wrought long to build the proper base
To set the Cubic Stone in place;
And by it--deeper yet interred--
To lay the Book of the Sacred Word:
There to repose while the Ages grew;
Till the waxing Centuries, moving through
The zones that a higher life enfold,
Laid bare to the World its stores of gold.

So, out of the tomb, thus buried away
Has come the Rising Light of Day.
That fills the World with its sheen and shine;
Shekinah-like; a thing Divine.

And who shall tell of the debt we owe
To those Giblemites of Long Ago;
Who kept, through labors, long and sure
Those Firstlings of the Word secure;
To be, as Time her page unfurled,
The Faith and Solace of the World.

Shine on, O Light of the Crypt, until
Thy spheres of use be wider still.
Shine on, till all the World be drawn
Within thee--ever moving on:
And this thy blest assurance be.
Ye shall know the truth: and shall, so, be free!

PIEDMONT no. 521 - PLYMOUTH no. 560 - ORINDA no. 704 - ACORN no. 494
ALAMO no. 122 - EAST BAY no. 489 - HILLCREST no. 573

© 1998-2007 Orinda Lodge
Detected Browser: CCBot/1.0 (+http://www.commoncrawl.org/bot.html)
validate xhtml