Young America's Manual OUR NATIONAL ANTHEM : THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER. O say, can you see, by the dawn's early light, What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the clouds of the fight* O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming? And the rocket's 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? On that 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, half conceals, half discloses ? Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam, *The original text gave "perilous fight" as the ending of the third line. Key revised his text in 1840, and clouds of the fight," a stronger expression in every way, was substituted. Stedman, in the Library of American Literature, like ourselves, follows the last-mentioned. 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 No refuge could save the hireling and slave wave O'er 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 war's desolation! Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the heav'nrescued land Praise the power that hath made and preserv'd 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 O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave. -Francis Scott Key. 1779-1843. |