You ask me why I love her?
Well, give me time, and I'll explain...
Have you seen a Kansas sunset or an Arizona rain?
Have you drifted on a bayou down Louisiana way?
Have you watched the cold fog
drifting over San Francisco Bay?
Have you heard a Bobwhite calling
in the Carolina pines?
Or heard the bellow of a diesel
in the Appalachia mines?
Does the call of Niagara
thrill you when you hear her waters roar?
Do you look with awe and wonder
at a Massachusetts shore...
Where men who braved a hard new world,
first stepped on Plymouth Rock?
And do you think of them when you stroll
along a New York City dock ?
Have you seen a snowflake drifting
in the Rockies... way up high?
Have you seen the sun come blazing down
from a bright Nevada sky?
Do you hail to the Columbia
as she rushes to the sea...
Or bow your head at Gettysburg...
in our struggle to be free?
Have you seen the mighty Tetons?
...Have you watched an eagle soar?
Have you seen the Mississippi roll
along Missouri's shore?
Have you felt a chill at Michigan,
when on a winters day,
Her waters rage along the shore
in a thunderous display?
Does the word "Aloha"... make you warm?
Do you stare in disbelief
When you see the surf come roaring
in at Waimea reef?
From Alaska's gold to the Everglades...
from the Rio Grande to Maine...
My heart cries out...
my pulse runs fast at the might of her domain.
You ask me why I love her?...
I've a million reasons why.
My beautiful America...
beneath God's wide, wide sky.
"And crown thy good with brotherhood
from sea to shining sea."
