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The Star Spangled Banner.

I was reading about the Star Spangled Banner, our national anthem. Many people [including me] don’t realize exactly the way this came about. I learned in around the third grade [I think} that Francis Scott Key wrote the Star Spangled Banner. I was reading up on it and found out what a fascinating guy Key was. We have a couple of books about him,  and the National Anthem here in the Library. The original title for The Star Spangled Banner was “The Defence of Fort McHenry,” and began as a poem. It was later set to an English tune called “To Anacreon in Heaven” . It also has 4 verses, of which we sing the first. I’ve heard people lobby for changing our National Anthem to something less complicated, but for me it wouldn’t have the same resonance. I especially love the National Anthem when I hear it followed  by Play Ball [LOL], and it absolutely gives me shivers to hear it at the Olympics as one of our athletes stands on the podium. For anyone interested here are the full four verses of The Star Spangled Banner: The Star Spangled Banner Lyrics
By Francis Scott Key 1814
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 thru 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.
Oh, 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! Oh 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!
Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n 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!
Posted by, Estel.