Charles Sangster (1822–1893)

ONE voice, one people, one in heart,

And soul, and feeling, and desire.

Re-light the smouldering martial fire,

And sound the mute trumpet! Strike the lyre!

The hero dead cannot expire;

The dead still play their part.

Raise high the monumental stone!

A nation’s fealty is theirs;

And we are the rejoicing heirs,

The honoured sons of sires, whose cares

We take upon us unawares

As freely as our own.

We boast not of the victory,

But render homage, deep and just,

To his—to their—immortal dust,

Who proved so worthy of their trust;

No lofty pile nor sculptured bust

Can herald their degree.

No tongue can blazon forth their fame—

The cheers that stir the sacred hill

Are but mere promptings of the will

That conquered them, that conquers still;

And generations yet shall thrill

At Brock’s remembered name.

Some souls are the Hesperides

Heaven sends to guard the golden age,

Illuming the historic page

With record of their pilgrimage;

True martyr, hero, poet, sage;—

And he was one of these.

Each in his lofty sphere, sublime,

Sits crowned above the common throng;

Wrestling with some pythonic wrong

In prayer, in thunders, thought or song,

Briareus-limbed, they sweep along,

The Typhons of the time.