Smile, it's painless!

Did you know that there are four verses to our national anthem? Why don't we ever sing them all? After all the entire song is our national anthem, not just the first verse. We miss a lot of the meaning of this powerful song when we sing only one quarter of it.

I realize that to ask people to stand through four verses of this song at a ball game or other event is asking too much. Then again, is it really? Why not get the whole powerful impact of the poem as it was written? I can just picture Francis Scott Key looking towards the ramparts of Fort McHenry as the sun rises in the east, waiting to see the outcome of the battle. Who's flag will the rising sun show flying over the fort? Will it be the American or British flag? Then he sees it, the American flag, tattered and torn, but still gallantly waving, proud and free. The sight drove him to write a powerful poem that was set to music and eventually became the National Anthem of the United States of America - The Star Spangled Banner.

The following was taken from http://www.bcpl.net/~etowner/anthem.html


It was the valiant defense of Fort McHenry by American forces during the British attack on September 13, 1814 that inspired 35-year old, poet-lawyer Francis Scott Key to write the poem which was to become our national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner." The poem was written to match the meter of the English song, "To Anacreon in Heaven." In 1931 the Congress of The United States of America enacted legislation that made "The Star-Spangled Banner" the official national anthem.

    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 on 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 wiped 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.

    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 shall wave
    O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!