Original Poem (1893)
- America. A Poem for July 4.
- 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!
Read more about this topic: America The Beautiful
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—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)
“Let us dismiss, as irrelevant to the poem per se, the circumstance ... which, in the first place, gave rise to the intention of composing a poem that should suit at once the popular and the critical taste.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)