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 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 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 ev’ry 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.

🔹”America the Beautiful” started out as a poem from the pen of Katharine Lee Bates. 🔹She wrote it in 1895, intending to make it a part of a special Fourth of July church sermon.

🔹After church organist Samuel A. Ward set the poem to a melody in 1910, “America the Beautiful” became one of the most popular of the many U.S. patriotic songs in the 20th century, arguably nearly as famous as “The Star-Spangled Banner.”