Name that tune

Who knows what well-known song has the word halcyon in it? Hint: it’s patriotic.

Good job, Karen and Anna! It’s a word in the song America, the Beautiful.

Halcyon (hal’ see un)

NOUN, a fabled Greek bird, identified with the kingfisher, who is supposed to have the power to calm the wind and the waves while it nests at sea during the winter solstice.

ADJECTIVE, calm/peaceful/tranquil, happy/carefree: halcyon atmosphere, or prosperous/golden: halcyon years.

In 1893, at the age of thirty-three, Katharine Lee Bates, an English professor at Wellesley College, took a train trip to Colorado to teach summer school. Many of the sights on her trip inspired her, including the World’s Exposition in Chicago, Chicago itself (the “White City” with its alabaster buildings), the wheat fields of America’s heartland, and the majestic view of the Great Plains from atop Pikes Peak.

On the top of Pikes Peak, the words of a poem started to come to her, and she wrote them down upon returning to her hotel room. The poem was initially published two years later to commemorate the Fourth of July. It quickly caught the public’s fancy.

Several existing pieces of music were adapted to the poem. A tune came to Samuel W. Ward while he was on a ferryboat trip. He was so anxious to capture the tune in his head, he asked a fellow passenger for his shirt cuff to write the tune on, creating our well-known off the cuff analogy??? Ward’s music combined with Bates’ poem was first published in 1910.

 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!

O beautiful for pilgrim feet
Whose 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.

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 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 good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea.

O beautiful for halcyon skies.
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties.
Above the enameled plain!
America!America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till souls wax fair as earth and air
And music-hearted sea!

O beautiful for pilgrim’s feet,
Whose stern impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America!America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till paths be wrought through
Wilds of thought
By pilgrim foot and knee

O beautiful for glory-tale
Of liberating strife
When once and twice,
for man’s avail
Man lavished precious life
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till selfish gain no longer stain
The banner of the free!

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the year
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till noble men keep once again
Thy whiter jubilee!

In 2009, Buffy Sainte-Marie released a new version of America the Beautiful. Her version contained some new lyrics, as well as a small modification of the melody.

O beautiful for vision clear,
That sees beyond the years,
The night time sky, our hopes that fly,
Undimmed by human tears.
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee,
‘Til selfish gain no longer stain,
The banner of the free.
And crown thy good with brotherhood,
From sea to shining sea.

Wellesley students honor Bates with a version at graduation, substituting:
And crown thy good with SISTERhood,
From sea to shining sea.

But wait! How about the MISHEARD lyrics commonly heard? (You know who, what, when, and where.)
God shed his face on thee (dear God, facebook?)
God shed his grace on tea (Chai for a Chai?)
For Hamburg waves of grain (Iowa, not Germany!)
Angelica, Angelica (Houston, Houston)
Bob shared his grapes with me (Won’t you be my Gallo?)
With motherhood
From me to shining me.
Oh beautiful for spacious guys (every girl needs one)

  1. Wow, I did not know this! I googled and found out that the poet, Katharine Lee Bates, who wrote the words to “Oh, Beautiful” changed several lines slightly several years after the poem was first published. I have always sung the word “spacious” in its “halcyon” place. I had no idea…Also changed from the original by the author was “enameled plain” to “fruited”. Fascinating. This is according to “The American Patriot’s Almanac” that I found in GoogleBooks.

  2. Anna Russiano says:

    America the Beautiful!

  3. Kyria says:

    Very cool! My youngest sister’s name is Halcyon.

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