America
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 mountain side,Let freedom ring.
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.
Let music swell the breeze,And ring from all the treesSweet freedom’s song;Let mortal tongues awake;Let all that breathe partake;Let rocks their silence break--The sound prolong.
Our fathers’ God, to Thee,Author of liberty,To Thee we sing:Long may our land be brightWith freedom’s holy light:Protect us by Thy might,Great God, our King.
Words in this poem
- templed a.
- Supplied with a temple or temples, or with churches; inclosed in a temple.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
America is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems Every Child Should Know The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library, Project Gutenberg ebook #16436; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Mary E. Burt, America, in Poems Every Child Should Know (1904), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16436, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/poems-every-child/america.html, id L25284.
Form and metre
America is 28 lines in 4 stanzas of 7 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABCCCB. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%).
See other poems in iambic trimeter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 AABCCCB theeA · libertyA · singB · diedC · prideC · sideC · ringB
- 2 AABCCCB theeA · freeA · loveB · rillsC · hillsC · thrillsC · aboveB
- 3 AABCCCB breezeA · treesA · songB · awakeC · partakeC · breakC · prolongB
- 4 AABCCCB theeA · libertyA · singB · brightC · lightC · mightC · kingB
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| My country, ’tis of thee, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Sweet land of liberty, | 6 | ···/˘˘ |
| Of thee I sing; | 4 | ···· |
| Land where my fathers died, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Land of the Pilgrims’ pride; | 6 | ···/˘· |
| From every mountain side, | 6 | ·/˘/˘· |
| Let freedom ring. | 4 | ·/˘· |
| My native country, thee-- | 6 | ·/˘/˘· |
| Land of the noble free-- | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Thy name I love; | 4 | ···· |
| I love thy rocks and rills, | 6 | ······ |
| Thy woods and templed hills; | 6 | ···/˘· |
| My heart with rapture thrills, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Like that above. | 4 | ···· |
| Let music swell the breeze, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| And ring from all the trees | 6 | ······ |
| Sweet freedom’s song; | 4 | ·/˘· |
| Let mortal tongues awake; | 6 | ·/˘·˘/ |
| Let all that breathe partake; | 6 | ····˘/ |
| Let rocks their silence break-- | 6 | ···/˘· |
| The sound prolong. | 4 | ··˘/ |
| Our fathers’ God, to Thee, | 6 | //˘··· |
| Author of liberty, | 6 | /˘·/˘˘ |
| To Thee we sing: | 4 | ···· |
| Long may our land be bright | 6 | ··/··· |
| With freedom’s holy light: | 6 | ·/˘/˘· |
| Protect us by Thy might, | 6 | ˘/···· |
| Great God, our King. | 5 | ··/˘· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.