Horatio Parker, one of the greatest of contemporary American composers, wrote the music, “America the Beautiful,” to which this hymn is set though it is frequently sung, and most effectively, to the tune “Materna”. These lines were set ringing in her heart, and into a noble poem she has woven the beauties of that mountain-top vision:Įach verse is crowned with a prayer that to the physical beauty of her native land God may add the highest moral beauty: And crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea. For purple moutain majesties above thy fruited plain America, America, God shed His grace on thee. The patriotic impressions made upon her mind by the wonderful White City she bore westward with her as she journeyed to Colorado.Īnd when at last she stood on the summit of Pike’s Peak and beheld the far-spreading panorama below and the spacious skies above, her soul was stirred by the thought of the greatness and the God-given destiny of America. (America, America, America, America) Oh beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain. She wrote it in 1893 while on a Western tour that brought her first to the Columbian Exposition in Chicago. O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, For purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain Background: This re-imagined America the. Miss KATHARINE LEE BATES, professor of English Literature in Wellesley College, is the author of this hymn, O Beautiful for Spacious Skies. In The Garden / I Come to the Garden Alone Hymn The History of O Beautiful for Spacious Skies Hymn Win Them One by One Hymn Story and Lyrics

America! America! God shed his grace on thee,Īmerica! America! May God thy gold refine,Īmerica! America! God mend thine every flaw,īelow are more posts on hymns and their lyrics:

Oh beautiful for spacious skies lyrics