O beautiful for pilgrim feet Whose stern impassion'd stress A thoroughfare for freedom beat Across the wilderness. America! America! God mend thine e… - Katharine Lee Bates

By the promise of noon"s blue splendor in the dawn"s first silvery gleam, By the song of the sea that compelleth the path of the rockcleaving stream, I summon thee, recreant dreamer, to rise and follow thy dream.

Though earth be but an outpost of delight, Heaven"s wild frontier by tragedy beset, Only a Shakespeare may her gifts requite. Only a happy Raphael pay his debt. Yet I, to whom, even as to these, are given Cascading foam, emblazoned butterflies, The moon"s pearl chariot through the massed clouds driven, And the divinity of loving eyes, Would make my peace now with mine hostess Earth, Give and take pardon for all brief annoy, And toss her, far beneath my lodging"s worth, Poor that I am, a coin of golden joy.

In the inmost core of thy being I am a burning fire, From thine own altar-flame kindled in the hour when souls aspire, For know that men"s prayers shall be answered, and guard thy spirit"s desire.