Melodies, duets, trios, songs, and ballads, pastoral, amatory, sentimental, patriotic, religious, and miscellaneous Together with metrical epistles, tales and recitations |
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MASONIC ODE. |
 | Melodies, duets, trios, songs, and ballads, pastoral, amatory, sentimental, patriotic, religious, and miscellaneous |  |
267
MASONIC ODE.
When the great Architect of heaven and earth,
Spoke this magnific system into birth,
And bade its numerous orbs in order roll,
To perfect wide creation's wondrous plan,
He breathed his own pure spirit into man,
And man became a living soul;
Lord of the fair elysian fields he trod,
An image and a likeness of his God;
Designed, by wisdom infinite, to be
A living temple of the Deity;
An earthly palace, where would deign to dwell
A guest divine, of name ineffable!
Spoke this magnific system into birth,
And bade its numerous orbs in order roll,
To perfect wide creation's wondrous plan,
He breathed his own pure spirit into man,
And man became a living soul;
Lord of the fair elysian fields he trod,
An image and a likeness of his God;
Designed, by wisdom infinite, to be
A living temple of the Deity;
An earthly palace, where would deign to dwell
A guest divine, of name ineffable!
But, love of self, a wily serpent, stole
Into the sacred precincts of the soul,
And tempted man to taste and eat
The specious, fair, forbidden fruit of pride,
Which heavenly love in mercy had denied;
By which offence,
He lost the Eden of his innocence,
And fled, an exile, from the blissful seat.
The hallowed mental temple thus became
A mass of shapeless ruins, where
Eternal Truth no more inscribed His name,
A den of thieves, and not a house of prayer.
Into the sacred precincts of the soul,
And tempted man to taste and eat
The specious, fair, forbidden fruit of pride,
Which heavenly love in mercy had denied;
By which offence,
He lost the Eden of his innocence,
And fled, an exile, from the blissful seat.
The hallowed mental temple thus became
A mass of shapeless ruins, where
Eternal Truth no more inscribed His name,
A den of thieves, and not a house of prayer.
'Twas to rebuild this miniature of heaven,
This temple of Jehovah in the mind,
That the eternal three-fold Word was given,
And our symbolic mystic ART design'd.
For this, confiding Faith, and smiling Hope,
With sweet celestial Charity, appear'd;
Wisdom, and Strength, and Beauty, join'd the group,
And each a column of the fabric rear'd;
Surmounted by the royal-arch above,
Join'd by the key-stone of celestial love.
The work completed, on this heavenly plan,
His tabernacle is again with man.
This temple of Jehovah in the mind,
That the eternal three-fold Word was given,
And our symbolic mystic ART design'd.
268
With sweet celestial Charity, appear'd;
Wisdom, and Strength, and Beauty, join'd the group,
And each a column of the fabric rear'd;
Surmounted by the royal-arch above,
Join'd by the key-stone of celestial love.
The work completed, on this heavenly plan,
His tabernacle is again with man.
As an auxiliar in this glorious cause,
Our fellow-craft have reared this gothc pile,
Sacred to pure Benevolence, whose laws
Of mutual kindness light a blissful smile
In sorrow's dewy eye.
This splendid dome
Shall never echo an unheeded sigh,
For Charity, descending from the sky,
Claims the proud fabric as her future home,
Her earthly temple, where her blazing shrine
Glows with a light that never shall decline,
Till thousands yet unborn, admiring see
And own the peerless worth of Masonry.
Our fellow-craft have reared this gothc pile,
Sacred to pure Benevolence, whose laws
Of mutual kindness light a blissful smile
In sorrow's dewy eye.
This splendid dome
Shall never echo an unheeded sigh,
For Charity, descending from the sky,
Claims the proud fabric as her future home,
Her earthly temple, where her blazing shrine
Glows with a light that never shall decline,
Till thousands yet unborn, admiring see
And own the peerless worth of Masonry.
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