Outside the Templar’s retreat on a gate a man beats
with hands as red as wine shouting…

“Pray let me come in for i have not sinned,
 what covers my hands is not mine,
 but sin ages old, since Adam I’m told.
 Please accept me and let me be thine”

Now thanks to friends I’m in, and I’ve shed age-old sin,
and bore a crossed crimson sign,
on a mantel I’m told worn by knights of old
that faced death and never gave in.

So for this honour please take this promise i make
as a brother on which to rely…

“no matter what challenge in life i shall face,
 i will remember my place, and honour this Preceptory
 till the day that i die!” 

 (written as a reply to a toast on being accepted
 into a masonic knights templar Preceptory)