America The Beautiful

I've posted before about how we shouldn't have a National Anthem. It would be far better for a diverse and constantly changing nation like America to simply let a whole lot of patriotic songs exist together, serving various needs and communities as the occasion requires. Songs that fade in relevance can disappear and new songs that speak to the current generation, or that have an attachment to a particular event, can rise.

One example, though I don't especially like it, is Lee Greenwood's "God Bless The USA." It's patriotic and speaks very clearly to a large swath of the country. But, we've already got a bunch of songs already set, an official bureaucracy of patriotims, so it tends to get deprecated in official settings.

Anyway, all this was brought on because I ran into the lyrics for "America the Beautiful." They speak so clearly to what America is going through right now. And rather than mark a military event, as the "Star-Spangled Banner" does, it celebrates the land and the people and our ideals, exalting all that makes America great. Originally a poem by Katharine Lee Bates that was twice rewritten, it was later set to music in the form we know it today.

In this time of war, the third stanza is particularly appropriate:

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 for 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 the 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!

O beautiful for halcyon skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the enameled plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till souls wax fair as earth and air
And music-hearted sea!

O beautiful for pilgrims feet,
Whose stern impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America ! America !
God shed his grace on thee
Till paths be wrought through
wilds of thought
By pilgrim foot and knee!

O beautiful for glory-tale
Of liberating strife
When once and twice,
for man's avail
Men lavished precious life !
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till selfish gain no longer stain
The banner of the free!

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
Till nobler men keep once again
Thy whiter jubilee!