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?
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, half conceals, half 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, 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!
Mrs. America, Diane Tucker, 2007
In honor of the National Anthem Project
History
of The Anthem
The
song of our nation was penned by Washington attorney Francis Scott
Key at a dramatic moment during the War of 1812. On the night
of September 13, 1814, Key watched as our country was attacked
by the British navy at Fort McHenry, Baltimore, MD. After watching
the rockets’ red glare and bombs bursting in air throughout
the night, dawn broke. Key was expecting to find Baltimore firmly
under British control, but was stunned to see a battered but still
flying American flag waving in the sunrise. So inspired was Key
that he wrote the poem, “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
Set to a tune attributed to John Stafford Smith, “To Anacreon
in Heaven,” it became America's national anthem in 1931.
Today, having never heard more than the first verse, many Americans
are not aware that there are four verses to the Anthem, while
some Christian groups especially sing the 1st and 4th verses as
a matter of course. Hear
the first verse here.
The
Sikh Anthem.
America's
National Anthem 
