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Defence of Fort McHenry (The Stars and Stripes Forever)
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7.4
/10
(17
votes)
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1 O! say can you see, by the dawn's early light,
2 What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming,
3 Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
4 O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly streaming?
5 And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
6 Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there --
7 O! say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
8 O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?
9 On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
10 Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
11 What is that which the breeze o'er the towering steep,
12 As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
13 Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
14 In full glory reflected now shines on the stream --
15 'Tis the star-spangled banner, O! long may it wave
16 O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.
17 And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
18 That the havock of war and the battle's confusion
19 A home and a country should leave us no more?
20 Their blood has wash'd out their foul foot-steps' pollution,
21 No refuge could save the hireling and slave,
22 From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave;
23 And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
24 O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.
25 O! thus be it ever when freemen shall stand
26 Between their lov'd home, and the war's desolation,
27 Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land
28 Praise the power that hath made and preserv'd us a nation!
29 Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
30 And this be our motto -- "In God is our trust!"
31 And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
32 O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.
Francis Scott Key
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Read poems about / on: star, home, war, trust, silence, power, peace, red, light, god, night
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Comments about this poem (Defence of Fort McHenry (The Stars and Stripes Forever)
by
Francis Scott Key
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Francis Scott Key
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Mouhamad Naboulsi
(8/11/2009 12:26:00 AM) |
I sometime tear up when I hear the anthem, but! ! ! , this is not the original contents and it omits the part about how the Muslim soldier at For McHenry prayed at sun rise as the flag became visible in the dawn early light.
Just another history correction.
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Michael Pruchnicki
(5/30/2009 9:39:00 AM) |
Where was the American love of freedom during the first two years of WWII, when the freedom of the whole world was at stake? - Evidently Straw doesn't know much history. The Lend-Lease Act enacted in 1941 permitted FDR to sell, lend or lease war supplies to Britain without payment or charge. To compare the sacrifices made by Ameica in battle and the restoration of post-war Europe to a scene in a film made in Hollywood by Americans puts Straw's hair on end boggles the mind, to say the least!
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Kevin Straw
(5/30/2009 6:45:00 AM) |
One understands the nationalistic fervour in this poem because of the circumstances in which it was written. But it is difficult to not infer from it that freedom. and courage in defending it, reside only in a religious America and under the one flag. Where was the American love of freedom during the first two years of WWII, when the freedom of the whole world was at stake? As national anthems go, I would put this second to the French anthem - the scene in Casablanca when the French refugees broke into La Marseillaise is still for me hair-raising.
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JOE POEWHIT
(5/30/2009 5:53:00 AM) |
Words say much how the founding people felt.
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The Mysterious M...
(3/13/2009 7:58:00 AM) |
Wow, Who the hell would vote AGAINST the U. S. National Anthem? ! 7.4? Come on, now!
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Talyor Jones
(5/3/2005 8:51:00 PM) |
I/'m doin a report for school and this doesn't help me as much as it should. I'm actually quite sad. : ' /
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