Classic Poem

Thou dost establish—and our hearts receive—
New laws of Love to link and intertwine
Majestic peoples; Love to weld and weave
Comrade to comrade, man to bearded man,
Whereby indissoluble hosts shall cleave
Unto the primal truths republican.
…

Friend, Brother, Comrade, Lover! last and best!
That from this dull diurnal strife dost raise
My panting soul to thy celestial rest!
How holy are the heavens when thou art near!
I soar, I float, I rock me on thy breast;
The music of thy melodies I hear;
I see thee aureoled with living light
Lean from the lustrous rondure of thy sphere,
Ethereal, disembodied; whom the blight
Of warping passion hath no power to tame;
Who fearest not with eye serenely bright
To gaze on death and sorrow and mortal shame—
For who art Thou to tremble or turn pale,
Whose life is Love eternally the same?

How shall I praise Thee? with what voice prevail
O'er legioned heretics, that, madly blind,
Imagining a vain thing, rise and rail
Against thy sanctity of godhood shrined
In beauty of white light they may not bear?
Lo! Thou, even Thou, in thine own time shalt bind
And break their kings and captains! from thin air
Forth flashing fiery-browed and unsubdued,
Thine athletes shall consume them unaware!
Yea, even now, like Northern streamers hued
With radiant roses of the ascendant morn,
I see thy fierce unfaltering multitude
Of lovers and of friends in tranquil scorn
Arise, o'erspread the dusky skies, and drown
In seas of flame the pallid stars forlorn.

There shall be comrades thick as flowers that crown
Valdarno's gardens in the morn of May;
On every upland and in every town
Their dauntless and imperturbable array,
Serried like links of living adamant
By the sole law of lover their wills obey,
Shall make the world one fellowship, and plant
New Paradise for nations yet to be.
O nobler peerage than that ancient vaunt
Of Arthur or of Roland! Chivalry
Long sought, last found! Knights of the Holy Ghost!
Phalanx Immortal! True Freemasonry,
Building your temples on no earthly coast,
But with star-fire on souls and hearts of man!
Stirred from their graves to greet your Sacred Host
The Theban lovers, rising very wan,
By death made holy, wave dim palms, and cry:
“Hail, Brothers! who achieve what we began!”