A fire-mist and a planet—

A crystal and a cell

A jelly-fish and a saurian,

And caves where the cave-men dwell;

Then a sense of law and beauty

And a face turned from the clod—

Some call it Evolution,

And others call it God.

A haze on the far horizon,

The infinite, tender sky,

The rich ripe tint of the cornfields,

And the wild geese sailing high—

And all over the uplands and lowland

The charm of the golden rod—

Some of us call it Autumn,

And others call it God.

Like the tides on a crescent sea-beach,

When the moon is new and thin,

Into our hearts high yearnings

Come welling and surging in—

Come from the mystic ocean

Whose rim no foot has trod—

Some of us call it Longing,

And others call it God.

A picket frozen on duty—

A mother starved for her brood—

Socrates drinking the hemlock

And Jesus on the rood;

And millions who, humble and nameless,

The straight hard pathway plod—

Some call it Consecration,

And others call it God.

— William Herbert Carruth

Brethren banded together

Hand in hand for good,

Joined for mankind’s uplift,

United in brotherhood.

Each of the band a builder,

Faces turned from the sod;

Some folks call it Masonry

And others call it God.