The Road of Masonry
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Men build a Road of Masonry
Across the hills and dales;
Unite the prairie and the sea,
The mountains and the vales
They cross the chasm, bridge the stream
They point to where the turrets gleam,
and many men for many a day
Who seek the heights shall find the way

Men build a Road of Masonry
But not for self they build
With footsteps of humility
The hearts of men are thrilled.
This music makes their labors sweet;
The endless tramp of other feet
The thought that men shall travel thus
An easier road because of us.

We build the Road of Masonry
With other men in mind;
We do not build for you and me,
We build for all mankind.
We build a road, remember, men
Build not for Now, but build for When,
And other men who walk the way
Shall find the road we build today.

Who builds the Road of Masonry,
Though small or great his part,
However hard the task may be
May toil with singing heart.
For it is something, after all,
When muscles tire and shadows fall,
To know that other men shall bless
the BUILDER for his faithfulness

Echoes
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Fine men have walked this way before,
Whatever Lodge your Lodge may be;
Whoever stands before the door,
The sacred arch of Masonry,
Stands where the wise, the great, the good,
In their own time and place have stood.

You are not Brother just with these,
Your friends and neighbors; you are kin
With Masons down the centuries;
This room that now you enter in
Has felt the tread of many feet,
For here all Masonry you meet.

You walk the path the great have trod,
The great in heart, the great in mind,
Who looked through Masonry to God,
And looked through God to all mankind
Learned more than word or sign or grip,
Learned Man’s and God’s relationship.

To him who sees, who understands,
How mighty Masonry appears!
A Brotherhood of many lands,
A fellowship of many years,
A Brotherhood so great, so vast,
Of all the Craft of all the past.

And so I say a sacred trust
Is yours to share, is yours to keep;
I hear the voice of men of dust,
I hear the step of men asleep;
And down the endless future, too,
Your own shall echo after you.

Always A Mason
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Let no king quite put off his crown!
I still would have him kingly when
In some old inn the king sat down
To banquet with his serving-men.
I love a mild and merry priest,
Whom Brothers toast, and neighbors prod;
Yet would I have him, at the feast,
A little of the man of God.

So with a Mason: I would see
Him somewhat of a Mason still,
Though far from Lodge-rooms he may be,
In court, or counting-house, or mill.
Whatever garment he may doff,
What mark Masonic lay aside,
I would not have him quite put off
The Craft he lately glorified.

A soldier is a soldier, though
He lays the sword aside awhile.
The time, the place, I do not know
Man may not serve, or may not smile.
I know no moment anywhere,
Whatever place the place may be,
A Mason may not always wear
A little of his Masonry.

Building
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Brick by brick the Masons builded
Till the highest cross was gilded
With the glory of the sun,
Till the noble task was done.
Step by step and one by one
Wall and rafter, roof and spire
Men were lifting ever higher,
Not in some mysterious way —
With the tasks of every day.

Architects may do their dreaming,
See their visioned turrets gleaming
High above them in the skies;
Yet the wisdom of the wise
Cannot make one roof arise —
Hearts must sing and hands must labor,
Man must work beside his neighbor,
Brick on brick and toil on toil
Building upward from the soil.

So we build a lodge or nation,
On the firmly fixed foundation
Of a flag or craft or creed;
But on top of that we need
Many a noble thought and deed,
Day by day and all the seven,
Building slowly up to heaven,
Till our lives the lives shall seem
Of the Master Builder’s dream.

A Little Lodge of Long Ago
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The Little Lodge of long ago-
It wasn’t very much for show;
Men met above the village store,
And cotton more than satin wore,
And sometimes stumbled on a word,
But no one cared, or no one heard.

Then tin reflectors threw the light
Of kerosene across the night
And down the highway served to call
The faithful to Masonic Hall.
It wasn’t very much, I know,
The little lodge of long ago.

But, men who meet in finer halls,
Forgive me if the mind recalls
With love, not laughter, door of pine,
And smoky lamps that dimly shine,
Regalia tarnished, garments frayed,
Or cheaply bought or simply made,

And floors uncarpeted, and men
Whose grammar falters now and then
For Craft or Creed, or God Himself,
Is not a book upon a shelf:
They have a splendor that will touch
A Lodge that isn’t very much.

It isn’t very much—and yet
This made it great: there Masons met
And, if a handful or a host,
That always matters, matters most.
The beauty of the meeting hour
Is not a thing of robe or flow’r,

However beautiful they seem:
The greatest beauty is the gleam
Of sympathy in honest eyes.
A Lodge is not a thing of size,
It is a thing of Brotherhood,
And that alone can make it good.

Members or Masons
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Oh, his hair was a white as the snow that we tread,
With a little black cap on the back of his head,
And he trembled a bit, but I saw in his eyes
Both the gaze of a friend and the look of the wise.
Ere they opened the Lodge we just happened to chat:
‘I’m not knocking,’ he said, ‘don’t accuse me of that,
But I tell you, my son, if there’s anything wrong
With the Craft any place, anywhere you belong,
In a Lodge that is lacking or lagging behind,
More members than Masons you always will find.

‘When a fellow gets old, say a fellow like me,
He may think that the past is all right, I agree,
And the present all wrong; and yet, nevertheless,
We have seen more of men than you youngsters, I guess;
And, if in a Lodge, be it large, be it small,
There’s a lack of that heart that’s the heart of it all,
And a lack of the head that is bowed at the thought
Of the Craft that it is and the work it has wrought,
Then, I say, in that Lodge, lacking heart, lacking mind,
More members than Masons is what you will find.

‘For it isn’t enough that we mumble a word,
No, it isn’t enough that our voice shall be heard,
But our acts must be seen — yes, in word and in act,
Be a Mason in name and a Mason in fact!
Sixty years I have walked in the face of the storm,
And it kept my head up and it kept my heart warm;
And the need of us now, like the need of us then,
Is not members but Masons, not members but Men!
Let us leaven the lump till at last you will find
All members, all Masons, in heart and in mind.’

The Masonry of Spring
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Men say, ‘How wonderful is Spring!’
I say, ‘How marvelous is man!’
For Spring no more can gladness bring
To earth than men to mortals can.
The Springtime sun is very good,
But, oh, the smile of brotherhood!
And green the grass upon the slope,
But lovelier some word of hope.

There is a Masonry of earth,
Of sun and blossom, seed and rain;
The only Masonry of worth
Is one that brings the Spring again,
Brings strength to brothers sore beset,
And faith to brothers who forget;
Like sun to blossom, rain to seed,
Are men who come to men in need.

A great fraternity is ours
Who really see and understand,
A brotherhood of hearts and flow’rs
And smiling sun and stretching hand.
We, too, may bloom in our own way,
Make glad some other mortal’s day,
As much as any birds that sing
In God’s great Masonry of Spring!

Father’s Lodge
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Father’s lodge, I well remember,
wasn’t large as lodges go,
There was trouble in December
getting to it through the snow.
But he seldom missed a meeting;
drifts or blossoms in the lane,
Still the Tyler heard his greeting,
winter ice or summer rain.

Father’s lodge thought nothing of it:
mid their labors and their cares
Those old Masons learned to love it,
that fraternity of theirs.
What’s a bit of stormy weather,
when a little down the road,
Men are gathering together,
helping bear each other’s load?

Father’s lodge had made a village:
men of father’s sturdy brawn
Turned a wilderness to tillage,
seized the flag, and carried on,
Made a village, built a city,
shaped a country, formed a state,
Simple men, not wise nor witty —
humble men, and yet how great!

Father’s lodge had caught the gleaming
of the great Masonic past;
Thinking, toiling, daring, dreaming,
they were builders to the last.
Quiet men, not rich nor clever,
with the tools they found at hand
Building for the great forever,
first a village then a land.

Father’s lodge no temple builded,
shaped of steel and carved of stone;
Marble columns, ceilings guilded,
father’s lodge has never known.
But a heritage of glory
they have left, the humble ones —
They have left their mighty story
in the keeping of their sons.

Poetry of Douglas Malloch.