Posted
on July 22, 2015
On
this date in 1893, a 33-year-old woman took a carriage ride up Pikes
Peak in Colorado. The last six miles to the summit of the mountain
she and her travel
The
woman was amazed by the beauty spread before her. She felt she truly
understood for the first time just how beautiful America was.
The
woman was Katharine Bates.
She and her dear friend and housemate
Katharine Coman were both professors at Wellesley, and they were
excited that they had been hired to teach summer classes at Colorado
College. They welcomed the chance to travel to the West!
The
two Katharines traveled by train, crossing Massachusetts and New York
visiting the gorgeous Niagara Falls, traveling through forested areas
and across plains planted with wheat and other crops, crossing
several other states including Illinois and Kansas, and finally
reaching Colorado Springs.
 |
| Pikes Peak, seen above Garden of the Gods |
If
you have never seen it, Colorado Springs is gorgeous!
Not only does the 14,000-foot Pikes Peak loom over the landscape, but
so do an assortment of marvelous red stone towers now called Garden
of the Gods.
Naturally, the two young professors traveled about,
seeing the sights, whenever they weren't in the classroom.
 |
| Garden of the Gods (above AND below) |
Actually, the college arranged for the visiting professors the carriage trip up Pikes Peak. The view from the summit never failed to please visitors.
However,
in the case of Katharine Bates, the landscape didn't just please, it
inspired. Along with all the images of America from her train voyage,
Bates felt a poem well up inside her, and she hurried to write down
the words that night:
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 pilgrim 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 or 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!
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the enameled plain!
America! America!
 |
| Halcyon skies! |
God shed His grace on thee,
Till souls wax fair as earth and air
And music-hearted sea!
O beautiful for pilgrim 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 or 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!
 |
| The fruited plains! |
Bates
improved her poem twice in her life. The 1913 version is the one that
is familiar to me:
 |
| From sea to shining sea! |
O
beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
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!
By the way...
- Bates's poem was first published on Independence Day 1895.
- The music was written separately, by a man named Samuel Ward, in 1882.
- The poem and music were put together and published as "America, the Beautiful" in 1910.
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