Katharine Lee Bates, a 33-year-old English literature trainer at Wellesley School, was on “a merry expedition up Pike’s Peak” in Colorado in 1893 when she appeared out “over the sea-like expanse of fertile nation spreading away up to now underneath these ample skies.”
Right away, she mentioned, “the opening traces of the hymn floated into my thoughts.” These traces turned “America the Stunning” — a track that can characteristic Tuesday in numerous parades and band live shows.
Everybody is aware of the primary verse, with its evocation of “amber waves of grain” and “purple mountain majesties.” However what number of have learn — not to mention sung — all the track?
The total hymn is greater than only a poetic appreciation of the nation’s wonders of nature.
It evokes the vitality of an ever-widening America, celebrates its storied previous and — most necessary — evokes its limitless future potential.
It hails the pioneering forebears who beat “a thoroughfare of freedom . . . throughout the wilderness,” and pays tribute to the nation’s defenders in struggle, the courageous “heroes . . . who greater than self their nation cherished.”
Extra: It appears to be like ahead to a day when America’s “alabaster cities” lastly will “gleam undimmed by human tears.”
The track has all the time stirred deep emotion. “I can’t learn the traces with out swallowing arduous,” one early reader wrote Bates. Voices quavered as crowds solemnly sang the track outdoors the White Home in 1941 after Pearl Harbor and, six a long time later, at Floor Zero after 9/11.
In 1979, Pope John Paul II recited its fervent prayer — “America, America, God shed his grace on thee” — as he descended from his airplane on his first journey to this nation.
The numerous memorable recordings and renditions — from Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Willie Nelson, Mariah Carey and others — all share a transferring simplicity, with out the vocal acrobatics that too usually accompany “The Star-spangled Banner.”
The music performs a big half within the track’s mystique.
Samuel Howe, a church organist, composed it throughout an 1882 ferry journey from Coney Island to his dwelling in Newark — for a completely completely different hymn.
It was hooked up to Bates’ phrases in 1904 after his demise.
Immediately’s actually the day to completely admire this magnificent tribute to America and all that it represents. Have a wonderful Fourth!
America the Stunning
By Katharine Lee Bates (1859-1929)
Music by Samuel Augustus Howe (1847-1903)
O lovely 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 lovely for pilgrim ft
Whose stern impassioned stress
A thoroughfare of freedom beat
Throughout the wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine each flaw,
Verify thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in regulation!
O lovely for heroes proved
In liberating strife.
Who greater than self their nation cherished
And mercy greater than life!
America! America!
Could God thy gold refine
Until all success be nobleness
And each achieve divine!
O lovely for patriot dream
That sees past 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!
