America

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