American Patriotic Song - America the Beautiful

America the Beautiful is a patriotic American song. Its lyrics were written by Katharine Lee Bates and its music was composed by church organist and choirmaster Samuel A. Ward at Grace Episcopal Church in Newark New Jersey.The two never met. Bates originally wrote the words as a poem entitled Pikes Peak that was first published in the Fourth of July 1895 edition of the church periodical The Congregationalist. It was at that time that the poem was first entitled America. Ward had initially composed the songs melody in 1882 to accompany lyrics to Materna basis of the hymn O Mother dear Jerusalem though the hymn was not first published until 1892. The combination of Wards melody and Batess poem was first entitled America the Beautiful in 1910. The song is one of the most popular of the many U.S. patriotic songs.4,

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