To England
We are not twain, but one: though seas divide us—
The children of the English-speaking race—
This nothing now can change: whate'er betide us,
This is our birthright grace.
The tongue that holds our earliest recollection,
Whose accents moved us like a fond caress—
The tongue in which we lisped our first affection,
Must still attach and bless.
America and England knit together—
Offspring of one great Mother, Sister Lands—
Fear neither frowning fate nor boding weather,
When close are joined their hands.
Beneath the ocean-billow sways the cable
That gives them instant knowledge, each of each,
And were it sunk, their hearts would still be able
To find a way of speech.
The younger, who her virgin prairies planted
To bless the alien—Teuton, Latin, Gaul,
Welcomes the poorest, as to realms enchanted,
And makes them English, all!
And still, the elder, in the hour of danger,
The bond of kinship never quite forgot,
Speaks with commanding accent to the stranger:
"Be heedful; touch her not!"
For we have felt—have felt with one another,
Sharing each other's hope, each other's dread;
And we have wept, as children of one mother,
Mourning our cherished dead.
Is 't for ourselves this friendship hath caressed us—
That Heaven hath strengthened so the English speech?
Nay; God forbid! the mercy that hath blessed us
Hath a diviner reach!
If with new strength there come not larger kindness,
Our banners, proudly borne, were better furled;
If we no longer see, for selfish blindness,
Beyond our realms, the world,—
Then poor, indeed, though vast our rule supernal,
Who magnify the ill we might redeem;
Missing the glory of the hope eternal—
The god-like, human dream!
[...] Read more
poem by Florence Earle Coates from Mine and Thine (1904)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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