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Sounding Childhood Main Menu Part 1: Children's Hymns Part 2: Songs for School and Play Part 3: Animal Welfare (Bands of Mercy) Songs Part 4: Christmas Carols Part 5: Folk Songs Part 6: Patriotic Songs Part 7: Early 20th-Century Hymns About the Author Works Cited

another lawn shot 2025

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"I love to tell the story" Alisa Clapp-Itnyre
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"O Beautiful for Spacious Skies"
"O Beautiful for Spacious Skies" also known as "America, the Beautiful" was written by Wellesley College English professor, Katharine Lee Bates, as she travelled west the summer of 1893. Visiting the World's Exhibition in Chicago, she was caught by the juxtaposition between the wealth and technological advances of our country and the social and racial disparity of the people. As the group of professors reached Colorado Springs and travelled up to Pikes Peak, though, she was reminded of the utter beauty of this country: "I saw the view, I felt the great joy. All the wonder of America seemed displayed there...I penciled [the four stanzas] in my notebook...". From that experience came this poem, as she extols the natural beauty of America: "for amber waves of grain, for purple mountain majesties, above the fruited plain!" (v. 1), but also as Bates recognizes its limitations: as the singers ask God to "crown thy good with brotherhood" (v. 1, my bold) and "mend thine every flaw" (v. 2). Bates reminds us of our natural beauty to be protected and country's social potential for which to strive: "O beautiful for patriot's dream That sees beyond the years. / Thine alabaster cities gleam, Undimmed by human tears" (v. 3). We are not there yet, but we can build on the early patriot's dreams...

Sources: Robert J. Morgan, Then Sings My Soul (W Publishing, 2011).
Score from:
Choir: The Community Choristers (2025); soloist: Ray Andrei.