Have a Star-Spangled Fourth!

I love the 4th of July! I love everything it represents about our country and I thoroughly enjoy celebrating the holiday. Our family’s U.S. flag proudly flies on the front of our house and the overhang of our front porch is decked out with red, white and blue buntings. I am worse than the kiddos when it comes to anticipating the fireworks at the end of the evening. Throw in a well-sung rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” and I instantly become misty-eyed.

"The Star-Spangled Banner" comes from a poem written in 1814 by Francis Scott Key, a then 35-year-old amateur poet who wrote "Defence of Fort McHenry" after seeing the bombardment of Fort McHenry at Baltimore, Maryland, by Royal Navy ships in the Chesapeake Bay during the War of 1812. It wasn’t until later that the poem was renamed and set to music.

Did you know that our national anthem has four stanzas? Only the first is commonly sung today, with the fourth ("O thus be it ever when free men shall stand ...") added on more formal occasions.

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.
Oh, 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! 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!

O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory 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!

Sing it loud! Sing it proud! (And please stand up, face the flag, take off your hat, and place your hand over your heart.)

For more Fourth of July trivia, visit Steph over at For the Love of Sam.

God bless America and may we enjoy our freedom with lives deserving of His blessings!