Why should we leave the soil our fathers cleared,
And lifelong tilled with patient, loving hands?
Why should we leave the homes our fathers reared,
And seek strange dwellings in unhallowed lands?
Why should we leave the shrines where they revered
Their guardian God, and break the golden bands
That bind us to the ashes of our sires,
Their haunts, their hearthstones and their altar-fires?
Is it that now no longer from our doors
The forest stretches with its gloom profound?
That they who first set foot upon these shores
Increase and multiply and hedge us round,
Co-heritors of the exhaustless stores
Of natural wealth that more and more abound? -
Because of brethren of a differing speech,
From whom we learn, and whom perhaps we teach?
It was not thus our conquering race arose;
It was not thus our copious language grew:
The Saxon mingled with his Celtic foes,
The Norman brought to both a spirit new.
Not thus we read th' heroic tale of those
Who built the younger Britains o'er the blue:
'Twas here and there a handful in the earth,
Prevailing, not by numbers, but by worth.