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The Star Spangled Banner
( De vlag van de Verenigde
Staten )
By Francis Scott Key
(The Defense of Fort McHenry)
September 20, 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, 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, now conceals, now 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, for our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner forever shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
On Sept. 13, 1814, Francis Scott Key
visited the British fleet in Chesapeake Bay to secure the release
of Dr. William Beanes, who had been captured after the burning of
Washington, DC. The release was secured, but Key
was detained on ship overnight during the
shelling of Fort Mc Henry, one of the forts defending Baltimore.
In the morning, he was so delighted to see the American flag
still flying over the fort that he began a poem
to commemorate the occasion. First published
under the title “Defense of Fort M'Henry,” the poem soon
attained wide popularity as sung to the tune “To Anacreon
in Heaven.” The origin of this tune is
obscure, but it may have been written by John Stafford Smith,
a British composer born in 1750. “The
Star- Spangled Banner” was officially made the
national anthem by Congress in 1931, although it
already had been adopted as such by the army and the navy.
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