America the Beautiful
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"America the Beautiful" is a patriotic song written as a poem by Katharine Lee Bates and published in 1893[1] in The Congregationalist. Unlike our national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner," "America the Beautiful" has no official recognition.
Its lack of legal status and its use at official state functions fascinate liberals and liberal observers.
Lyrics
- O beautiful for spacious skies,
- For amber waves of grain,
- For purple mountain majesties
- Above the fruited plain!
- America! America!
- God shed his grace on thee
- And crown thy good with brotherhood
- From sea to shining sea!
- O beautiful for pilgrim feet
- Whose stern impassioned stress
- A thoroughfare of freedom beat
- Across the wilderness!
- America! America!
- God mend thine every flaw,
- Confirm thy soul in self-control,
- Thy liberty in law!
- O beautiful for heroes proved
- In liberating strife.
- Who more than self their country loved
- And mercy more than life!
- America! America!
- May God thy gold refine
- Till all success be nobleness
- And every gain divine!
- O beautiful for patriot dream
- That sees beyond the years
- Thine alabaster cities gleam
- Undimmed by human tears!
- America! America!
- God shed his grace on thee
- And crown thy good with brotherhood
- From sea to shining sea!
- O beautiful for halcyon skies,
- For amber waves of grain,
- For purple mountain majesties
- Above the enameled plain!
- America! America!
- God shed his grace on thee
- Till souls wax fair as earth and air
- And music-hearted sea!
- O beautiful for pilgrims feet,
- Whose stem impassioned stress
- A thoroughfare for freedom beat
- Across the wilderness!
- America! America!
- God shed his grace on thee
- Till paths be wrought through
- wilds of thought
- By pilgrim foot and knee!
- O beautiful for glory-tale
- Of liberating strife
- When once and twice,
- for man's avail
- Men lavished precious life!
- America! America!
- God shed his grace on thee
- Till selfish gain no longer stain
- The banner of the free!
- O beautiful for patriot dream
- That sees beyond the years
- Thine alabaster cities gleam
- Undimmed by human tears!
- America! America!
- God shed his grace on thee
- Till nobler men keep once again
- Thy whiter jubilee!
References
- â the year 1893 is from A Religious History of the American People, Sydney E. Ahlstrom, Yale University Press, 1972,1158 pp., page 7