Bates, Katharine Lee (1859–1929).  Author of “America the Beautiful.”

 

“America! America! God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea
to shining sea.”

Complete Transcript:

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!

Katharine Lee Bates

Historical Background: Katharine Lee Bates wrote this quintessential American song during her time as an English professor at the Colorado College in Colorado Springs.  According to the poet, she was inspired to write the stanzas after she viewed the grandeur of the western territory, and particularly Pike’s Peak, during an excursion with her fellow teachers.  From its first publication in the newspaper The Congregationalist until today, Bates’s poem continues to be revered as one of America’s favorite patriotic songs.  The current transcript is a handwritten copy of the extended version of the poem, which Bates finalized in the 1910s.

 

Katharine Lee Bates.  Autograph Manuscript Signed (Katharine Lee Bates), 1 page, folio, ca. 1913–1929.  A beautifully handwritten transcription of her famous poem “America the Beautiful.”