Posted on 09/14/2018 12:29:58 PM PDT by TBP
Happy 204th birthday to the National Anthem!
Vanity threads belong in chat, not news.
You are drunk.
The Star Spangled Banner Lyrics
By Francis Scott Key 1814
Oh, say can you see by the dawns early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilights last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,
Oer 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
Oer the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foes haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, oer the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the mornings first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave
Oer 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 battles 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
Oer 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 wars desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heavn 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
Oer the land of the free and the home of the brave!
May as well add this one, too:
America, The Beautiful Lyrics
by Katharine Lee Bates 1913
O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America! God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!
O beautiful for pilgrim feet,
Whose stern impassiond stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America! God mend thine evry flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!
O beautiful for heroes proved In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved,
And mercy more than life!
America! America! May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness,
And evry gain divine!
O Beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam,
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America! God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!
We should kneel in prayer and thank God for our Anthem and for the country it celebrates.
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