Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. IV. The Nineteenth Century: Wordsworth to Rossetti

Sydney Dobell (1824–1874)

Sonnets: America

MEN say, Columbia, we shall hear thy guns,

But in what tongue shall be thy battle-cry?

Not that our sires did love in years gone by,

When all the Pilgrim Fathers were little sons

In merrie homes of Englaunde? Back, and see

Thy satchelled ancestor! Behold, he runs

To mine, and, clasped, they tread the equal lea

To the same village-school, where side by side

They spell ‘Our Father.’ Hard by, the twin pride

Of that grey hall whose ancient oriel gleams

Thro’ yon baronial pines, with looks of light

Our sister-mothers sit beneath one tree.

Meanwhile our Shakespeare wanders past and dreams

His Helena and Hermia. Shall we fight?

Nor force nor fraud shall sunder us? Oh 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; oh 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 unsevered,—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.