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 thro' 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 thro' 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 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!
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 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, when our cause it 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