The Oxford Book of Canadian Verse
BrockCharles Sangster (18221893)
O
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.