Unless you know all four stanzas of the Star Spangled Banner, you may find
this most interesting. Perhaps most of you didn't realize what
Francis Scott Key's profession was or what he was doing on a ship.
This is a good brush-up on your history.
This is
how it came to be written:
In 1812, the United States went to war with
Great Britain,
primarily over freedom of the seas. We were in the right. For two years,
we held off the British, even though we were still a rather weak country.
Great Britain was
in a life and death struggle with Napoleon. In fact, just as the United
States declared war, Napoleon marched off to invade Russia. If he won, as
everyone expected, he would control Europe, and
Great Britain would
be isolated. It was no time for her to be involved in an American war.
At first, our seamen proved better than the
British. After we won a battle on
Lake Erie in 1813,
the American commander, Oliver Hazard Perry, sent the message, "We have
met the enemy and they are ours." However, the weight of the British navy
beat down our ships eventually. New England, hard-hit by a tightening
blockade, threatened secession.
Meanwhile, Napoleon was beaten in Russia
and in 1814 was forced to abdicate.
Great Britain now
turned its attention to the United States, launching a three-pronged
attack.
The northern prong was to come down
Lake Champlain
toward New York and seize parts of New England.
The southern prong was to go up the
Mississippi, take New
Orleans and paralyze the west.
The central prong was to head for the
mid-Atlantic states and then attack Baltimore, the greatest port south of
New York. If Baltimore was taken, the nation, which still hugged the
Atlantic coast, could be split in two. The fate of the United States,
then, rested to a large extent on the success or failure of the central
prong.
The British reached the American coast, and
on August 24, 1814, took Washington, D.C. Then they moved up the
Chesapeake Bay toward Baltimore. On September 12, they arrived and found
1,000 men in Fort McHenry, whose guns controlled the harbor. If the
British wished to take Baltimore, they would have to take the fort.
On one of the British ships was an aged
physician, William Beanes, who had been arrested in Maryland and brought
along as a prisoner.
Francis Scott Key, a lawyer and friend of the physician, had come
to the ship to negotiate his release.
The British captain was willing, but the
two Americans would have to wait. It was now the night of September 13,
and the bombardment of Fort McHenry was about to start.
As twilight deepened, Key and Beanes saw
the American flag flying over Fort McHenry. Through the night, they heard
bombs bursting and saw the red glare of rockets. They knew the fort was
resisting and the American flag was still flying. But toward morning the
bombardment ceased, and a dread silence fell. Either Fort McHenry had
surrendered and the British flag flew above it, or the bombardment had
failed and the American flag still flew.
As dawn began to brighten the eastern sky,
Key and Beanes stared out at the fort, trying to see which flag flew over
it. He and the physician must have asked each other over and over, "Can
you see the flag?"
After it was all finished, Key wrote a four
stanza poem telling the events of the night. Called "The Defense of Fort
McHenry," it was published in newspapers and swept the nation. Someone
noted that the words fit an old English tune called, "To Anacreon in
Heaven" -- a difficult melody with an uncomfortably large vocal range. For
obvious reasons, Key's work became known as "The Star Spangled Banner,"
and in 1931 Congress declared it the official anthem of the United States.
Now that you know the story, here are the
words. Presumably, the old doctor is speaking. This is what he asks Key:
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 rocket's red glare, the bombs
bursting in air, Gave proof thro' 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?
("Ramparts," in case you don't know, are
the protective walls or other elevations that surround a fort.) The first
stanza asks a question. The second gives an answer:
On the shore, dimly seen thro' the mist 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. Oh! long may
it wave O'er the land of the free and the home of
the brave!
"The towering steep" is again, the
ramparts. The bombardment has failed, and the British can do nothing more
but sail away, their mission a failure. In the third stanza I feel Key
allows himself to gloat over the American triumph. In the aftermath of the
bombardment, Key probably was in no mood to act otherwise? During World
War I when the British were our Staunchest allies, this third stanza was
not sung. However, I know it, so here it is:
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
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.
(The fourth stanza, a pious hope for the
future, should be sung more slowly than the other three and with even
deeper feeling):
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 is
just, And this be our motto --"In God is our
trust." And the star-spangled banner in triumph
doth wave O'er the land of the free and the home of
the brave.
I hope you will look at the national anthem
with new eyes. Listen to it, the next time you have a chance, with new
ears. Pay attention to the words. And, don't let them ever take it away,
not even one word of it!