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, 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, 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 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.
O
thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between
their loved homes and the war's desolation.
Blest
with vict'ry 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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