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America the Beautiful
By Katherine Lee Bates
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 impassion'd stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness.
America! America!
God mend thine ev'ry flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law.
O beautiful for heroes prov'd
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 ev'ry gain divine.
O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabster 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.
Katharine Lee Bates wrote the lyrics to this song in 1893 after she
climbed to the top of Pikes Peak in Colorado. It was a poem called America
the Beautiful and it was printed in the Congregationalist, a
magazine on July 4, 1895.
Ms. Bates changed the lyrics twice. Once in 1904 and
again in 1913. In the beginning the words were sang to different
popular songs. One of those songs was Auld Lang Syne.
In 1920 the words were printed with the music of Materna, which was
written by Samuel A. Ward in 1882.
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