Song in my Heart Sunday...

"America the Beautiful" —often called the national hymn of the United States—was adapted from a poem by a Wellsely College English professor named Katharine Lee Bates, written in 1893. She wrote the poem on a long trip she took to Colorado, about the beauty of the country through which she traveled. As the story has it, she thought up the poem while visiting Pike's Peak, and wrote it down as soon as she returned to her hotel. Now, there is a plaque atop the mountain commemorating Bates and her poem's composition.

America the Beautiful

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!

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