Toast to Absent Brethren (SW)

This is the Vale Lodge Version. In our Lodge, the Senior Warden delivers this.

If at 9 o’clock you listen when around the festive board 
if you listen very carefully with your hearts tuned in accord 
you will hear when in the south and west you’re charged in fullest measure
the sound of distant voices calling “Brother, May I have the pleasure”

For at 9 o’clock we greet you, wherever we may stand 
be you merely out of town or in some distant land 
with caring hearts and timely thoughts we pause amongst our leisure 
to call a distant greeting, “Brother may I have the pleasure”

As we are bound together by a great eternal link 
we reach for that masonic cup from which we all may drink 
and call to absent brethren whose fellowship we treasure 
the Vale Lodge charge and challenge, “Brother may I have the pleasure”

Brethren – please be upstanding…

The toast: Absent Brethren.