NOR force nor fraud shall sunder us! O ye <br />Who north or south, on east or western land, <br />Native to noble sounds, say truth for truth, <br />Freedom for freedom, love for love, and God <br />For God; O ye who in eternal youth <br />Speak with a living and creative flood <br />This universal English, and do stand <br />Its breathing book; live worthy of that grand <br />Heroic utterance—parted, yet a whole, <br />Far yet unsever’d,—children brave and free <br />Of the great Mother-tongue, and ye shall be <br />Lords of an empire wide as Shakespeare’s soul, <br />Sublime as Milton’s immemorial theme, <br />And rich as Chaucer’s speech, and fair as Spenser’s dream.<br /><br />Sydney Thompson Dobell<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/america-10/
