No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of night 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 wild 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.
DEFINITIONS:--Hailed, greeted. Perilous, full of danger.
Ramparts, the walls of a fortification. Bombs, shells fired from
mortars. Haughty, overbearing. Fitfully, by starts. Discloses,
reveals to sight. Havoc, destruction.
NOTE.--This song was composed in September, 1814, at the time of
the bombardment of Fort McHenry, near Baltimore, by the British.
OUR NATIONAL BANNER.
BY EDWARD EVERETT.
All hail to our glorious ensign! courage to the heart and
strength to the hand, to which, in all time, it shall be
intrusted! May it ever wave first in honor, in unsullied glory
and patriotic hope, on the dome of the Capitol, on the country's
stronghold, on the tented plain, on the wave-rocked topmast.
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