America the beautiful (arr.

Mack Wilberg, The Mormon Tabernacle Choir, 2017)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euH0ucM6RN0
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 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!

in 1893, Katherine Lee Bates wrote the poem America the Beautiful. Her poem first appeared in print on July 4,
1895 in TheCongregationalist, a weekly journal. Ms. Bates revised the lyrics in 1904 and again in 1913.
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriter: Alexander Courage / Katherine Bates / Samuel Ward

Annotations:
amber: yellow plain: flat land thee (object) – you thoroughfare: Hauptverkehrsstraße to
mend: to repair flaw: small error, unevenness thine/thy (possessive): your
for (here): because strife: Anstrengung self: themselves be nobleness: will be of magnanimity
(Großherzigkeit) alabaster: shiny white (as the alabaster stone, a very expensive
material used by artists for making statues for example) to shed one’s grace on sb.: to be kind
and merciful towards sb.

Tasks:
a) Closely examine the lyrics of the song. What image of America is created? (quote from the text)

b) How does the music contribute to the message of the song?