This is so well known and deeply loved that it has almost become our second national anthem. Before 1931 it was actually a candidate to become America’s national anthem! It was written in 1893 by Katharine Lee Bates, a 33 year-old English literature professor at Wellesley College. She had taken a train to Colorado Springs to teach a short summer session. She was impressed by the many wonderful sights along the way, from the gleaming alabaster heights of buildings in the great cities of the Midwest, including the “World’s Columbian Exposition” in Chicago with its gleaming white buildings, to the fruited plains and amber waves of grain in America’s heartland in Kansas.
Especially impressive were the sights from atop Pikes Peak along the spine of the Rocky Mountains, soaring over 14,000 feet above the flat prairie. It was while marveling at those sights that the words of this hymn began to form in her mind. She wrote them down when she returned to her room in the Antlers Hotel that night. It was published two years later as part of a fourth of July celebration. Here is how she described the experience.
We strangers celebrated the close of the session by a merry expedition to the top of Pike’s Peak, making the ascent by the only method then available for people not vigorous enough to achieve the climb on foot nor adventurous enough for burro-riding. Prairie wagons, their tail-boards emblazoned with the traditional slogan, “Pike’s Peak or Bust,” were pulled by horses up to the half-way house, where the horses were relieved by mules. We were hoping for half an hour on the summit, but two of our party became so faint in the rarified air that we were bundled into the wagons again and started on our downward plunge so speedily that our sojourn on the peak remains in memory hardly more than one ecstatic gaze. It was then and there, as I was looking out over the sea-like expanse of fertile country spreading away so far under those ample skies, that the opening lines of the hymn floated into my mind.
For several years, her words were sung to any of several folk tunes, including “Auld Lang Syne.” The music which eventually became inseparably connected to the lyrics was composed by Samuel A. Ward, organist and choirmaster at Grace Episcopal Church in Newark, New Jersey. He had originally written the music in 1882 for the hymn O Mother Dear, Jerusalem, which is why it was given the tune name MATERNA. The tune came to him while on a ferryboat trip from Coney Island back to his home in New York City after a leisurely summer day. Bates’ lyrics and Ward’s music were published together in 1910, and titled America, the Beautiful. Bates, died March 28, 1929, and is buried in Falmouth, Massachusetts, and its composer, Samuel A. Ward, died on September 28, 1903, in Newark, New Jersey.
The song reminds us of the many magnificent things about this country, from its geography and marvels of nature to its unique history as a land of unparalleled freedom. There are few countries on Earth that contain as much diverse beauty as ours does, as Bates wrote in her lyrics, from the purple mountains of the Rockies to the amber waves of grain on the Great Plains. Today we think also of wonders from the magnificent desert canyons of the southwest to the tall, broad forests of the northeast. From the warm, wet Everglades in the deepest south to the lush rainforests of the Pacific Northwest. One could travel for hundreds and hundreds of miles, exploring hundreds and hundreds of different regions with all their different climates and cultures—and still find yourself under the same spacious sky.
The first stanza clearly reflects Bates’ appreciation of the sights stretching out above and before her from the heights of Pikes Peak. And then it proceeds to do what the latter part of every stanza does. It contains a prayer that God would continue to bless this great land. Here it’s that His grace would draw our citizens closer to one another in a loving brotherhood that would stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
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!
The second stanza remembers the pilgrims who traveled to this land years earlier, making their way across the plains into what was then a vast wilderness. In Bates’ vision, it was not just that they came to advance their own economic hopes, but rather that they made their way in order to mark out a highway for others, a thoroughfare, to enjoy their freedom. The prayer in this stanza recognizes that we, like all people, are flawed, and that our great need is for God to mend those flaws and enable us to remember that real liberty is found in submission to law. We would add that it must be God’s law, not just national ordinances.
O beautiful for pilgrim feet, Whose stern, impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat Across the wilderness!
America! America! God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control, Thy liberty in law!
The third stanza is one of the most deeply moving ones, as it remembers those who have given their lives to preserve these freedoms. What a beautiful expression she penned, that these heroes loved their country more than their own lives. The prayer this time is that God would refine, or purify, the gold in which we boast: our accomplishments, our technologies, our culture and economy and government, by making them all divine, humbly seeing them as His gifts rather than growing proud, taking all the credit for ourselves.
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!
The fourth stanza looks ahead to the further accomplishment of what our forefathers were dreaming, looking beyond the years and past the gleaming cities. It express an optimistic hope that our best years are yet to come, and recognizes that while there may be tears in the hardships we face now, they will eventually prove to be worth it. The final prayer repeats the longing of the first stanza, that God would add to the good things He has created in this land by giving something even greater: a brotherhood that would bind us all together,
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!
We should be so happy to live in this nation of ours. For all its problems, for all its challenges, it’s still America, home of the free and the brave. It’s still America, sweet land of liberty. It’s still America, the beautiful.
Here is a link to a wonderful choral performance (though with slightly different words), that includes beautifully chosen scenery with each phrase.