'Tis the fire of the flint each American warms: Let Rome's haughty victors beware of collision; Let them bring all the vassals of Europe in arms, We're a world by ourselves, and disdain a provision. While with patriot pride To our laws we're allied, No foe can subdue us, no faction divide; For ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves, While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves. Our mountains are crown'd with imperial oak, Whose roots, like our liberties, ages have nourish'd; But long ere our nation submits to the yoke, Not a tree shall be left on the field where it flourish'd. Should invasion impend, Every grove would descend From the hilltops they shaded our shores to defend; For ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves, While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves. Let our patriots destroy Anarch's pestilent worm, Lest our liberty's growth should be check'd by corrosion; Then let clouds thicken round us: we heed not the storm; Our realm fears no shock, but the earth's own explosion. Foes assail us in vain, Though their fleets bridge the main, For our altars and laws with our lives we'll maintain; For ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves, While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves. Should the tempest of war overshadow our land, Its bolts could ne'er rend Freedom's temple asunder; For, unmov'd, at its portal would Washington stand, And repulse with his breast the assaults of the thunder! His sword from the sleep Of its scabbard would leap, And conduct, with its point, every flash to the deep; For ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves, While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves. Let Fame to the world sound America's voice; No intrigues can her sons from their government sever: Her pride is her Adams, their laws are his choice, And shall flourish till Liberty slumbers forever. Then unite heart and hand, Like Leonidas' band, And swear to the God of the ocean and land, That ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves, While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves. --_Robert Treat Paine._ [Illustration: _STATUE OF THE MINUTEMAN AT CONCORD, MASSACHUSETTS_] The father of the author of _Adams and Liberty_, or as it has been more usually entitled in later days, _Ye Sons of Columbia_, was the Robert Treat Paine who was one of the immortal signers of the Declaration of Independence. The author of this hymn was given by his parents the name of Thomas, but on account of that being the name of a notorious infidel of his time, he appealed to the legislature of Massachusetts to give him a _Christian_ name; thereafter he took the name of his father, Robert Treat Paine.