Note.—This poem, which is now considered by many to be the great national hymn of the United States, was sung first at a Fourth of July celebration for children in the Park Street Church, Boston.

The author was born in Boston in 1808, and graduated from Harvard University in the same class with Oliver Wendell Holmes. When Smith wrote America he was a student in the Andover Theological Seminary. Many years after they had left college, Dr. Holmes at a reunion of his class read his famous poem The Boys. In it he alludes to Samuel Francis Smith as follows:

“He chanted a song for the brave and the free;
Just read on his medal ‘My country, of thee.’”

Perhaps few who know America and who sing it well understand it thoroughly.

There are a few historical allusions in it. Who were the pilgrims? Why did the pilgrims take pride in the land? Does the author mean Puritans when he says pilgrims?

The first stanza turned into prose might read something as follows: I sing of thee, my own country, the sweet land of liberty. Let all the people who live in this land where our fathers died, in this land which was the pilgrims’ pride, sing songs of freedom till they ring from every mountain side.

In the second stanza the poet in his religious fervor thinks of the hills as being like temples. He calls America the land of the noble free, meaning the noble freemen. Sometimes this line is printed with a comma after the word noble. Then the line means land of the noble man, the free man. The stanza as a whole might be rendered into prose after this manner: I love thee, my country, thou land of the noble free, and I love thy name; I love, too, thy rocks, rills, woods and templed hills, and my heart thrills with rapture like that which is felt by the angels above.The meaning of the third stanza is clearer if we put it into prose as follows: Let music swell grandly on the breeze, and let the sweet song of freedom ring from all the trees; let every human being sing the song; let all living things join in the chorus. Let even the rocks break the silence and prolong the music with their echoes.

The last stanza means this: O Thou great God, who protected our fathers in the wilderness and who created for them and their descendants the liberty we enjoy, to Thee we offer this devout song and prayer: “Through all the coming centuries may our land be free, and do Thou, great God our King, protect us by Thy far-reaching power.”

We should learn to think of a song like this as a unit, a perfect whole, and the following summary will aid us in so doing:

First stanza—I sing this song about my country, and may such songs of freedom ring everywhere within it.

Second stanza.—I love my country and every good thing in it devotedly.

Third stanza.—Let every one join in songs of freedom.

Fourth stanza.—We sing praises to God, and ask Him to protect us, and keep freedom forever ours.