The Defence of Fort McHenry

Via NiT, another American bashes the National Anthem.  This antipathy towards our anthem always bothers me. Our National Anthem is not just some dumpy tune that everyone sings to, it is a poem, written by an American captive on the scene, describing the fear and trepidation that Fort McHenry would fall, Baltimore would be lost to the British, and the great American experiment would die after not even four decades. Our National Anthem is not some banal jingoistic rambling, but is a statement of who we are. The Canadians sing out that they “Stand on guard for thee.” We need no such pledge.* Our stories speak for themselves. Our anthme is a song apart from others, because at the time, our government represented a people constituted amongst themselves apart from other peoples. So I give you the full poem of Francis Scott Key, “The Defence of Fort McHenry”

O 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 thro’ the mist 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 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.

*Not that I dislike the Canadian National Anthem, it’s a beautiful song. But I simply want to highlight what sets our song apart from all the other ones.