Our National Anthem

**Princess** · Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 5:35 am Post subject: Our National Anthem

There is talk, on a regular basis of replacing The Star Spangled Banner as the National Anthem of the United States. "It's too hard to sing...It's all about war....It doesn't really relate" Well, here's my take on the subject, as we get ready to celebrate this nation's birth. When Francis Scott Key wrote this poem about the battle at Ft McHenry, the country was under assault--and was nearly lost. He knew if he could see the flag at dawn, the county that he had come to love, was still in existance. If not--then he was no longer an American. Read the lyrics to The Star Spangled Banner and you get the idea of what Francis Scott Key felt on that day. Every time I hear it, it brings tears to my eyes and sends cold chills up my spine. God Bless the USA.

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!
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Princess

**JackO** · Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 10:52 am Post subject:

Ditto!

Happy Fouth of July USA!
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