Just a post of the roots to our national anthem. We all learned the words to the question it asks of us, but they never bothered to teach us what the answer is. In fact it has been so ingrained in us that we don't even listen to the meaning.
The Star Spangled banner is neither a song of the revolution, nor a song for our independence day; it is a poem about the defense of our freedoms and the duty of all men to protect their Country and their homes.
It was written 36 years after the revolution, near the end of the war of 1812.
The flag had not flown over the ramparts that night, it had been replaced with a storm warning flag and as they raised the star spangled banner the next morning it was seen by the poet onboard a truce ship eight miles away. He pulled a letter out of his pocket and began composing what was to be our anthem.
The Star Spangled Banner
By Francis Scott Key
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 thru the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's 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!
Oh! 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!