praying for the USA

AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL

Oh beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majestiesAbove the fruited plain.
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea.

Oh beautiful for pilgrim feet
Whose stern impassioned stress.
A thoroughfare of freedom beat
Across the wilderness.
America! America!
God mend thine ev'ry flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law.

Oh 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

Oh 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.

Original "Materna" hymn MUSIC written in 1882
by New Jersey musician Samuel Ward.

Poem/Verses written by Katherine Lee Bates,
an English teacher at Wellesley College
while visiting the top of
Pikes Peak in 1893.