Recently
Equal Parts Heart Over Equal Parts Money
Dear Annie: My husband and I work comparable hours, but I earn less than half of what he does and have little discretionary income. I come home to my "second shift," which includes cooking, cleaning and picking up after this man, who …Read more.
Valentine's Day Sex Therapy
Dear Readers: Happy Valentine's Day to one and all, along with our special good wishes to the veterans in VA hospitals around the country. And our particular thanks to those readers who have taken the time to send valentines, visit the vets and …Read more.
Too Much Power in an Ex
Dear Annie: "Ron" and I have been living together for more than a year. I love him and believe he loves me. We are both in our 60s and retired.
Ron is good to me in all but one way: He can't seem to cut off contact with his old girlfriend. …Read more.
Wannabe Doc Has No Time for Mom and Dad
Dear Annie: Our 22-year-old son is in college. He lives at home, and we pay all his expenses, which is fine with us. He was never particularly interested in school until his last year of high school. Now he's doing really well.
The problem is, he …Read more.
more articles
|
Annie's Mailbox®, July 4Dear Readers: Happy July 4th! Today is a good excuse to enjoy your family and friends, fire up the grill, play baseball, bask in the outdoors, visit a veterans hospital, volunteer at a soup kitchen, display the flag, listen to wonderful music and watch the fireworks. Here's your history lesson for the day. Did you know that the words to the song "America the Beautiful" were written by Katharine Lee Bates and the music was composed by Samuel A. Ward? Katharine Lee Bates was an English professor at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. In 1893, when she was 33 years old, Bates took a train trip to Colorado to teach for the summer. She was apparently inspired by the sights she saw along the way, such as the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago ("thine alabaster cities gleam"), the Midwestern wheat fields ("amber fields of grain") and the beautiful view from Pikes Peak ("purple mountain majesties"). She wrote a poem titled "Pikes Peak," and it was first published in a weekly journal called The Congregationalist on July 4, 1895, with the title changed to "America." At that time, it was not sung to any particular tune. She revised the words twice (in 1904 and again in 1913). Samuel A. Ward, a church organist and choirmaster, composed the music in 1882, while he was on the ferry from Coney Island to New York City. He composed the music to go with an existing hymn, "O Mother Dear, Jerusalem," and he called the new tune, "Materna." Legend says he wrote down the musical notation on the shirt cuff of his friend Harry Martin so he wouldn't forget it. Ward's music and Bates' poem were not published together until 1910, and the new combination was titled, "America the Beautiful." The original version included only four verses.
Unfortunately, Samuel Ward died in 1903 before he could see his music enshrined as a beloved anthem. Katharine Bates, however, lived until 1929 and saw her patriotic poetry become part of the national lexicon. Here are the words as they are sung today: O beautiful for spacious skies, For amber waves of grain For purple mountain majesties Above the fruited plain America! America! God shed your 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 for freedom beat Across the wilderness! America! America! God mend thine ev'ry 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 ev'ry 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!
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
