God bless our native land. American version

God bless our native land. American version. A few hymnals published in the USA and Canada use ‘God bless our native land*/ May heaven’s (or ‘his’) protecting hand’* by the British author William Edward Hickson*. Some print two texts, Hickson’s and a similar one, ‘God bless our native land!/ Firm may she ever stand’. Others use the second only.  This version has a complicated textual history, given in detail by JJ, p. 1566. There are two variant texts, one by Charles Timothy Brooks (1813-1883), written during his time as a student at the Divinity School, Cambridge, Massachusetts (1832-35), the other by John Sullivan Dwight(1812-1893). Brooks’ text is ‘said to be a tr. From the German’. The...