Patriotic Poems

America The Beautiful Katherine Lee Bates 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 hood with brotherhood From sea to shining sea! O beautiful for pilgrim feet, With stern, impassioned stress A thoroughfare for freedom beat Across the wilderness! America! America! God mend thine every flaw, Confirm thy soul in self-control Thy liberty in law! Oh 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 every 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 hood in brotherhood From sea to shining sea!

	The Flag Goes By Henry Holcomb Bennett Hats off! Along the street here comes A blare of bugles, a ruffle of drums, A flash of color beneath the sky: Hats off! The flag is passing by! Blue Crimson and white it shines, Over steel-tipped, ordered lines. Hats off! The colors before us fly! But more than the flag is passing by: Sea-fights and land-fights, grim and great, Fought to make and to save the state; Weary marches and sinking ship; Cheers of victory on dieing lips; Days of plenty and years of peace; March of a strong land’s swift increase; Equal justice, right and law, Stately honor and reverend awe; Sign of a nation great and strong To ward he people from foreign wrong; Pride and glory and honor- all Live the colors to stand or fall. Hats off! Along the street here comes A blare of bugles, a ruffle of drums; And loyal hearts are beating high: Hats off! The flag is passing by!

Atlantic Charter: 1942 Francis Brett Young What were you carrying, Pilgrims, Pilgrims? What did you carry beyond the sea? We carried the Book, we carried the Sword, A steadfast heart in the fear of the Lord, And a living faith in His plighted word That all men should be free. What were your memories, Pilgrims, Pilgrims? What of the dreams you bore away? We carried the songs our fathers sung By the hearths of home when they were young, And the comely words of the mother tongue In which they learnt to pray. What did you find there, Pilgrims, Pilgrims? What did you find beyond the waves? A stubborn land and a barren shore, Hunger and want and sickness sore: All these we found and gladly bore Rather than be slaves. How did you fare there, Pilgrims, Pilgrims> What did you build in that stubborn land? We felled the forest and tilled the sod Of a continent no man had trod And we established there, in the Grace of God, The rights whereby we stand. What are you bringing us, Pilgrims, Pilgrims? Bringing us back in this bitter day? The selfsame things we carried away: The Book, the Sword, The fear of the Lord, And the boons our fathers dearly bought: Freedom of Worship, Speech and Thought, Freedom from Want, Freedom from Fear, The liberties we hold most dear, And who shall say us Nay?

	The Star Spangled Banner Oh, say can you see, By the dawn's early light, What so proudly we hailed A the twilight's last gleaming, Whose broad stripes and bright stars Through the perilous fight, O'er the ramparts we watched Were so gallantly streaming? And the rockets' red glare, The bombs bursting in air, Gave proof thro' the night That our flag was still there. Oh, say does that Star Spangled Banner yet wave O'er the land of the free, And the home of the brave?