Classic Poem

What years are gone since last we met,
What friends beloved are dead,
And frosty brow and failing eye
Confess the life that's fled!
But still our manly hearts deny
That time the soul can bow;—
Oh, 'tis good to feel in a world like this
There's something true below!

The work goes on we loved so well,
In halcyon days of youth;
And rising high upon the eye,
Behold the walls of truth!
The work we hope will still go up
Though we in death must bow;
For 'tis good, etc.

Th' Acacia blooms at silent graves,
The sorrowing Virgin weeps;
The arm so strong in death is hung,
For lo, the Builder steeps!
Yet they and we beyond the sea
Shall meet again, we know;—
And 'tis good, etc.

Then raise the Mason song once more,
Who meet so soon to part;
The hands we clasped in days of vore
Combine, and heart with heart;
The Master lives, and at the close
Good wages will bestow;
For 'tis good to feel in a world like this
There's something true below!