Classic Poem

Eastward from Tyre, where the sun
First gleams above gray Hermon's side,
They brought thee, when thy work was done,
And laid thee here in royal pride;
They brought thee with the noblest rites
The wisest of our Craft enjoined;
Before thee soared the mountain heights,
And thy loved ocean isle behind.

The cedars bowed their kingly tops
As Hiram, Chief of Masons, passed;
O'er Lebanon's all-snowy slopes
The eagle screamed upon the blast;
Westward the foaming sea was crowned
With snow-white sails returning home;
Their Sea Queen glorious they found,
Where thou, their King, should no more come.

Where in thy lifetime thou hadst reared
This Tomb, befitting one so great,
They bore thee, monarch loved and feared,
And laid thee in thy bed of state.
They closed thee in with cunning art,
And left thee to thy well earned fame;
'Twas all the living can impart, —
A tomb, a pageant, and a name.

Loud was the wail on Zidon's hill, —
Her sages mourned thee as their own;
Loud the lament on tar Jebale,
Her wisest Son of Light was gone.
The ships of Tyre bore the word
On every wind across the main,
And white-robed Craftsmen wept their lord
And strewed the mystic leaves again.

Nor these alone, — on Zion too,
A Brother joins his tears with theirs;
King Solomon, to friendship true,
The grief of Tyre fitly shares;
His matchless pen such words indites
Of true report and sacred woe,
That to this hour Freemasons' rites
Within his wise direction go.

The centuries wore apace, and changed
The kingdom of each royal sire;
Ephraim from Judah was estranged,
And Zidon separate from Tyre;
Then swept the deluge over all —
The conqueror came with sword and flame,
And templed shrine and kingly hall
Are but the shadow of a name.

Yet here thy burial place is kept, —
Still this Memorial appears,
Though shadows of old time have crept
Along these stones three thousand years.
The frost and rain have gently seared,
The Orient sun hath kindly blessed,
And earthquakes shattering have spared
Our Kabr Hairan , Hiram's rest.

Still warm thine eastern front the rays
That call the Craftsmen to the wall;
Here let me chisel a device,
The oldest, holiest of all!
And as the western sun goes down,
To give the wearied Craft release,
His latest gleam, in smile or frown,
These time-stained ashlars still doth kiss.

The lizard darts within thy walls,
The Arab stalks indifferent by,
Vast relics once of lordly halls
Around in mute suggestion lie;
The hyssop springs between the stones,
The daisy blossoms at the foot,
The olive its peace lessons owns,
Best moral where all else is mute.

Stand thou till time shall be no more,
Great type of Masonry divine!
From eastern height, from western shore,
Let Craftsmen seek this ancient shrine;
And from each pilgrim this be heard,
As from one humble voice to-day:
" Honor to Hiram, — Masons' lord,
Honor and gratitude we pay! "