Day after day uprose the golden sun,
Night after night it sank beneath the wave,
Pointing the vessel on that carried one
The Empire honored to his western grave.
As Truth led that strong soul where’er it would
Onward through strife to honor without stain,
So is he brought through ocean’s solitude,
With but the billows for his funeral train.
No warrior he the blood of men that shed,
His was the higher task to make them one,
And Canada, awaiting now her dead,
With tears attests the task was nobly done.
Yet, not within this sea-borne funeral car
The patriot lies. He is no longer here,
But onward, upward still, he journeys far
Beyond our ken to some still nobler sphere.
The harbor of his earthly wishes won,
Fresh from new honors from his Sovereign’s hand,
To him the summons came. Earth’s voyage done,
He set his bark towards the eternal strand.
He has gone forth, and leaves us but his name
And this cold clay that waits the silent tomb;
Yet passing years shall never dim his fame,
Nor love forget him in their gathering gloom.
With tolling bell and beat of muffled drum,
With mournful boom of cannon, lay him down
Within the sepulchre, to which shall come
Faintly the murmur of his native town.
In death he knit the Empire closer yet,
Causing unnumbered hearts to throb as one.
Here by his tomb may Canada forget
The bigotry that he had fain undone.
With his Queen’s wreath upon his pulseless breast,
Lulled by the murmur of the restless wave,
Life’s voyage done, he takes his well-earned rest,
In port, at last, with God beyond the grave.