The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #69785 Message #1186649
Posted By: Joe Offer
16-May-04 - 03:24 AM
Thread Name: Lyr Add: American Hymn
Subject: ADD: American Hymn (Keller)
After I started the school songbook index thread, somebody asked me about this song.
I found two verses of in the Silver Burdett fifth-grade music text, Music in Our Country, and three verses are in Heart Songs. The Levy Sheet Music Collection has the 1866 sheet music with 4 verses, and that's what I used as the source of the following. Tune is from ccel.org, the Christian Classics Ethereal Library - it seems to match the sheet music.
Yes, it is jingoistic, isn't it?
-Joe Offer-
American Hymn
Matthias Keller, 1866
Speed our republic, O Father on high,
Lead us in pathways of justice and right;
Rulers as well as the ruled, one and all,
Girdle with virtue, the armor of might!
Hail! three times to our country and flag!
Rulers as well as the ruled, one and all,
Girdle with virtue, the armor of might!
Foeremost in battle, Freedom to stand,
We rush to arms when aroused by its call;
Still as of yore when George Washington led,
Thunders our war-cry, "We conquer or fall!"
Hail! three times to our country and flag!
Still as of yore when George Washington led,
Thunders our war-cry, "We conquer or fall!"
Faithful and honest to friend and to foe,
Willing to die in humanity's cause;
Thus we defy all tyrannical power
While we contend for our Union and laws!
Hail! three times to our country and flag!
Thus we defy all tyrannical power
While we contend for our Union and laws!
Rise up, proud eagle, rise up to the clouds,
Spread thy broad wing o'er this fair western world!
Fling from thy beak our dear banner of old!
Show that it still is for freedom unfurled!
Hail! three times to our country and flag!
Fling from thy beak our dear banner of old!
Show that it still is for freedom unfurled!