Page:Poems, Volume 1, Coates, 1916.djvu/164



E 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,

Attaches and doth bless.

America and England knit together—

Offspring of one great Mother, Sister Lands—

Need fear nor frowning fate nor boding weather,

While 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.

America, who virgin prairies planted

To bless the alien,—Teuton, Latin, Gaul,—