Here’s "Hands across the sea !" good sirs,

Here’s "Hands across the sea !"
To every isle and continent
Where ’ere our brethren be,
For we are one in sympathy,
As we are one in name;
The self-same tools are bright with use
and mystic lights aflame;

The same designs on trestle-board
By which our tasks are wrought,
Their symbol-truths impressed on heart
and centred in our thought
For that which counts for greatest good
Is through the lives of each,
Who by their acts exemplify
The principles we teach.

The world’s great heart is throbbing
with the spirit of unrest,
We hear the cry that welleth up
from people long oppressed,
We see the rule of mammon
and the grasping hand of greed,
The travesties of justice
and the toiler’s bitter need,
The striving for the mastery,
The ever-present fear,
With nation watching nation,
and the war clouds hovering near.

And the question ever riseth
as portentious signs we trace
What will the final outcome be,
and what the saving grace;
And Masonry makes us answer
With it’s never changing plan,
The Fatherhood of God,
The Brotherhood of Man!

Though aeons upon aeons break
upon the shores of time
This the grand fulfilment,
the prophesy sublime,
This the work of the trestle-board
for brethren everywhere,
For never was there a greater need
for level, plumb and square,

For trowel with cement of love
To strengthen and unite
The human race in brotherhood,
and usher in the Light!
To all who aid this glorious work,
wherever they may be,
Here’s to the Craft in homeland,
and here’s "Hands across the sea !"