Shibboleth: A Templar Monitor: Second Appendix: Fraternity Music

Shibboleth: A Templar Monitor, by George Cooper Connor, [1894], at sacred-texts.com

FRATERNITY MUSIC.

OLD HUNDRED. L. M.

HENDON. 7s.

NEARER, MY GOD, TO THEE.

AULD LANG SYNE.

TO A SKULL.

Part of a poem found beside a skeleton in the Museum of the London Royal College of Surgeons, author unknown. It was published in the Morning Chronicle early in the present century.

Behold this ruin! ’Twas a skull
Once of ethereal spirit full.
This narrow cell was life's retreat;
This space was thought's mysterious seat.
What beauteous visions filled this spot!
What dreams of pleasure long forgot!
Nor hope, nor joy, nor love, nor fear
Has left one trace of record here.

Beneath this mouldering canopy
Once shone the bright and busy eye:
But start not at the dismal void—
If social love that eye employed,
If with no lawless fire it gleamed,
But through the dews of kindness beamed,
That eye shall be forever bright
When stars and sun are sunk in night.

Within this hollow cavern hung
The ready, swift and tuneful tongue:
If falsehood's honey it disdained,
And when it could not praise was chained;
If bold in virtue's cause it spoke—
Yet gentle concord never broke—
This silent tongue shall plead for thee
When Time reveals Eternity!