The rough expanse of democratic sea Which parts the lands that live by liberty Is no division; for their hearts are one. To fight together till their cause is won.
For land and water let us make our pact, And seal the solemn word with valiant act: No continent is firm, no ocean pure, Until on both the rights of man are sure.
Where this text comes from
First published in The Poems of Henry Van Dyke (1920). This date is uncertain. Taken from the 1920 collected edition. That is the printing this text comes from, not the poem's first appearance: the volume gathers work published from 1897 onward, and which earlier book or magazine printed this poem first has not been established here. [1]
Structure read from the source's markup; the words have not been compared against a page scan. Last checked 2026-08-20.
Taken from Standard Ebooks, standardebooks/henry-van-dyke-jr_poetry, poetry.xhtml. Rights: public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931).
Earlier sources (15)
This poem as JSON or plain text . Line anchors #L1–#L8.
Cite this poem
Henry van Dyke Jr. (1852–1933).
“Britain, France, America.” First published in The Poems of Henry Van Dyke (1920).
Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/henry-van-dyke-jr/britain-france-america/.
Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.
More by Henry van Dyke Jr.