Katharine Lee Bates, America the Beautiful (1912)

Katharine Lee Bates

Katharine Lee Bates (1859–1929) was an American poet and songwriter born in Falmouth, Massachusetts. After graduating from Wellesley College in 1880, she remained at her alma mater for many years as a professor of English literature. During her lifetime, Bates became known for her poetry, travel books, and children’s books, and she was a regular contributor to various periodicals, including the Atlantic Monthly, the Congregationalist, the Boston Evening Transcript, and the Christian Century. Her poem “Goody Santa Claus on a Sleigh Ride,” which she published in 1889, is said to have first popularized Mrs. Claus.

America the Beautiful

Bates was inspired to write the original version of this poem after seeing Pikes Peak in the summer of 1893, during a teaching stint in Colorado Springs. Bates described her experience thus: “One day some of the other teachers and I decided to go on a trip to 14,000-foot Pikes Peak. We hired a prairie wagon. Near the top we had to leave the wagon and go the rest of the way on mules. I was very tired. But when I saw the view, I felt great joy. All the wonder of America seemed displayed there, with the sea-like expanse.”

The poem went through several revisions after its original publication on July 4, 1895, in the weekly journal called the Congregationalist. It appeared in the Boston Evening Transcript on November 19, 1904, and in her book America the Beautiful and Other Poems (1912). The version below is from that collection.

O beautiful for spacious skies,

For amber waves of grain,

For purple mountain majesties

Above the fruited plain!

5

America! America!

God shed His grace on thee

And crown thy good with brotherhood

From sea to shining sea!

O beautiful for pilgrim feet,

10

Whose stern, impassioned stress

A thoroughfare for freedom beat

Across the wilderness!

America! America!

God mend thine every flaw,

15

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,

20

And mercy more than life!

America! America!

May God thy gold refine,

Till all success be nobleness,

And every gain divine!

25

O beautiful for patriot dream

That sees beyond the years

Thine alabaster cities gleam

Undimmed by human tears!

America! America!

30

God shed His grace on thee

And crown thy good with brotherhood

From sea to shining sea!

(1912)