Many of us Americans are flying our flags to show our resolute determination in the face of the great evil which has struck us in such a cowardly way. It is immensely gratifying that our brothers and sisters around the world are doing the same thing, thank you again, one and all. Our National Anthem celebrates what The Stars and Stripes stands for, written as it was in another time of crisis for this great land. On the morning of September 20, 1814, Francis Scott Key stood on the deck of one of the ships bombarding Fort McHenry, straining his eyes to see if the bombardment had reduced the fort to ruins, paving the way for an invasion of Baltimore. When “The dawn’s early light” revealed that Old Glory still proudly waved over the fort, he siezed a pen and dashed off the lines that would be mated to an old English drinking song and, in the fullness of time,(1931, amazingly enough) become our national anthem. We all know the first verse:
Oh, say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
I wonder how many of us are familiar with the other 3 verses, and how well they fit our current situation?
*On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, now conceals, now discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines on the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner! O long may it wave
O’er 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 battle’s confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wiped out their foul footstep’s 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
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war’s desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, for our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”
And the star-spangled banner forever shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!*
Again,
And the star-spangled banner forever shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
Thus be it ever.