Happy Independence Day
I cannot let this Independence Day weekend pass without harkening back to one of the greatest poems ever written.
Now, granted, most of you (hopefully ALL) know the poem’s first verse by heart. But how many of you knew that there are three more?
Let’s go back to the War of 1812, when a young American lawyer went aboard a British ship of war to try and secure the release of a friend that had been taken prisoner. From the deck of that ship, the man watched as
He watched with amazement the battle that raged on through the night. And as dawn broke the next morning, Francis Scott Key looked to the fort for some glimpse of hope that the men within had not fallen. Above the ruined walls of the fort, to Key’s amazement and surprise, was none other than Old Glory Herself. Tattered and torn, but still flying free.
The words of his poem were set to an old English drinking song, entitled To Anacreon in Heaven. The Navy and Army soon adopted it as the National Anthem, and it was made the official Anthem by the Congress in 1931. Didn’t mean to go all historical on everyone, but I felt that I had to contribute my part.
Oh, 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, thro’ the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watch’d, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro’ 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 thro’ 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 wash’d 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 lov’d homes and the war’s desolation;
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land
Praise the Pow’r that hath made and preserv’d us as a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause 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!
Happy Independence Day!
Ice
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