Imagine standing on board a ship. Just a few short miles off the coastline. As you stand on there you are seeing your home being bombarded by the enemy. As you stand there you wonder in the morning, if there will be anything left.
As the night passes on, the bombardment continues. The fire lights up the night skyline. There are fires burning homes, shops, fields, crops and even ships that have been set ablaze.
As you stand there on that ship, your mind may goes back to days of fun that you had in your home with family and friends. Maybe it even wonders to discussions that you have had with someone about the new nation that is only a few years old.
The hardships that the new nation has faced. The trials that it must still go through. But what good things this new nation could do also.
As you look up you see the sun starting to rise in the east. As you look back towards to the west, towards land, you notice a battered flag waving in the wind. You realize it is the flag of the new nation.
What joy you must feel as you realize that the enemy has not taken over your home. But the men on the front lines have held their ground. They have fought the enemy and won. And suddenly your heart if filled with such emotion that you just have to put those words down. And that is what Francis Scott Key did back in 1812. My friends I give you the words to our the song that would go on to be our National Anthem. The Star-Spangled Banner.
Happy Birthday America, May God always bless and keep this nation in the palm of his hand. Happy Fourth Everyone.
The Star Spangled Banner
1814
Words by Francis Scott Key, Music by John Stafford Smith
O 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 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 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 in 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 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
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 homes and the war’s desolation!
Blest with vict’ry 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!
Words to the National Anthem Taken from this link:
http://www.thenationalanthemproject.org/aboutthesong.html
