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Composite photograph of the Star-Spangled Banner, 2004.
image source
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September 1814, as Francis Scott Key viewed through clearing smoke the American flag flying magnificently after a more than 24-hour battle of British attack on Fort McHenry, (Baltimore). Mr. Key was inspired to write a poem and quickly scribbled the words to all four verses on the back of a letter. The poem would later be set to music and in 1931 Congress adopted it as our official national anthem. The flag that flew that fateful day is now in the Smithsonian Institution.
Although we normally only sing one verse, one should acquaint themselves with all 4 stanzas to fully feel the impact of this magnificent work:
O say can you see, by the dawns early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilights last gleaming,
Whose broad striped and bright stars through the perilous fight
Oer the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets red glare, the bomb bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there,
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
Oer the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep
Where the foes haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, oer the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the mornings first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream,
Tis the star-spangled banner - O long may it wave
Oer the land of the free and the home of the brave.
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore,
That the havoc of war and the battles confusion
A home and a Country should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave,
Oer the land of the free and the home of the brave.
O thus be it ever when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the wars desolation!
Blest with victory and peace may the heaven rescued land
Praise the power that hath made and preservd us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto - In God is our trust,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
Oer the land of the free and the home of the brave.
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Francis Scott Key
1779 - 1843 |
