Hymns for Liberty Weekend Interfaith Service

America the Beautiful (O Beautiful for Spacious Skies)
TEXT: Katharine L. Bates, 1904

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam,
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self control,
Thy liberty in law.

Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory (The Battle Hymn of the Republic)
TEXT: Julia Ward Howe

1. Mine eyes have seen the glory
of the coming of the Lord;
he is trampling out the vintage
where the grapes of wrath are stored;
he hath loosed the fateful lightning
of his terrible swift sword;
his truth is marching on.

Refrain
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.

2. I have seen him in the watchfires
of a hundred circling camps,
they have builded him an altar
in the evening dews and damps;
I can read his righteous sentence
by the dim and flaring lamps;
his day is marching on.
Refrain

3. He has sounded forth the trumpet
that shall never call retreat;
he is sifting out the hearts of men
before his judgment seat;
O be swift, my soul, to answer him;
be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.
Refrain

4. In the beauty of the lilies
Christ was born across the sea,
with a glory in his bosom
that transfigures you and me;
as he died to make men holy,
let us die to make men free,
while God is marching on.
Refrain

5. He is coming like the glory
of the morning on the wave,
he is wisdom to the mighty,
he is honor to the brave;
so the world shall be his footstool,
and the soul of wrong his slave.
Our God is marching on.
Refrain

1. This is my song,
O God of the nations,
a song of peace
for lands afar and mine.
This is my home,
the country where my heart is,
here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine;
But other hearts in other lands are beating
with hopes and dreams as true as high as mine.

2. My country's skies
are bluer than the ocean,
and sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine;
But other lands have sunlight, too;
and clover,
and skies are everywhere as blue as mine.
O hear my song,
thou God of all the nations,
a song of peace for their land and for mine.

America (My Country, 'tis of Thee)
TEXT: Samuel F. Smith, 1832

1. My country, ’tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,
Of thee I sing;
Land where my fathers died,
Land of the pilgrims’ pride,
From every mountainside,
Let freedom ring!

2. My native country, thee,
Land of the noble free,
Thy name I love;
I love thy rocks and rills,
Thy woods and templed hills;
My heart with rapture thrills,
Like that above.

3. Let music swell the breeze,
And ring from all the trees,
Sweet freedom’s song;
Let mortal tongues awake;
Let all that breathe partake;
Let rocks their silence break,
The sound prolong.

4. Our fathers’ God, to Thee,
Author of liberty,
To Thee we sing;
Long may our land be bright
With freedom’s holy light;
Protect us by Thy might,
Great God, our King.