America the Beautiful

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!

On a summer’s day in 1895, a young woman of 34 years hired a team of horses to see Pikes Peak, a precipice on the Great Divide of America at 14,000 feet above the seas. The trek was so arduous and tiring that she had to take a mule for the final leg of the ascension. When she arrived at the top of the mountain and looked out over the vast expanse of land from that vantage point, she was awestruck by the beauty and the grandeur that she beheld. She sat down that day and penned her thoughts and her emotions that arose up from her soul. Her words now live in glory for all time.

Today I walked into a sanctuary of the divine. It was almost more than my mind could take in. The poetry that flowed within it wove history, emotion, and passion into a tapestry of poetic grandeur. I was dumbstruck. I doubt if I would have given much thought to the author at an earlier time in my life. But time was patient with me. It waited until I had matured enough to find, to feel, and to thank God for Katherine Lee Bates.

Miss Bates wrote more than the words that many say surpass the Star Spangled Banner in its sheer poetic beauty and the ease with which it can be sung as it elevates the listener as well as the singer. She also wrote about Spain, and Siberia, and Jerusalem, and about our President without naming him:

North, south, east, west, waft him our honor due!
For he is one who, when the tempest breaks
In shattering fury, wild with thunder-jars
And javelins of lightning that transform
All the familiar scene to horror, makes
A hush about him in the heart of storm,
Remembering the quiet of the stars.

She even wrote about the Mist with these jarring but stirring words:

Majestic, wild, colossal,
With angry arm thrown high;
Those swaying shoulders jostle
The glory from the sky.

I could go on, I suppose, like a school boy who still doesn’t realize how far he lags this classmates after many years of ignoring the urgings of his teachers. But once in awhile the payoff to procrastination is something that is very special. Listen as Ray Charles sings the words that cannot be denied their true place in the hearts and minds of all who seek a bit of solace in these troubled times:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRUjr8EVgBg