All Four Stanzas - Do you know them all?

This is pretty neat. I never knew all 4 stanzas to the "Star Spangled Banner." I actually didn't even know that there were 4 stanzas! Plus, I've always loved Isaac Asimov as an author. Interesting that he is the source of this info. Then again, he was an interesting guy.

------------------------------------

ALL FOUR STANZAS By Isaac Asimov

Introductory Note. Unless you're already well acquainted with our
"national anthem," this interesting piece by the late Isaac Asimov will be
an eye-opener. It was for me. It's especially appropriate at a time when
there is much talk of tossing out this difficult-to-sing and
difficult-to-comprehend old song in favor of something that better suits
Ray Charles' voice. You'll understand the song much better after you read
Mr. Asimov's explanation. --Hardly Waite, Gazette Senior Editor.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I have a weakness--I am crazy, absolutely nuts, about our National Anthem.

The words are difficult and the tune is almost impossible, but frequently
when I'm taking a shower I sing it with as much power and emotion as I
can. It shakes me up every time.

I was once asked to speak at a luncheon. Taking my life in my hands, I
announced I was going to sing our national anthem--all four stanzas.

This was greeted with loud groans. One man closed the door to the kitchen,
where the noise of dishes and cutlery was loud and distracting. "Thanks,
Herb," I said.

"That's all right," he said. "It was at the request of the kitchen staff."

I explained the background of the anthem and then sang all four stanzas.

Let me tell you, those people had never heard it before--or had never
really listened. I got a standing ovation. But it was not me; it was the
anthem.

More recently, while conducting a seminar, I told my students the story of
the anthem and sang all four stanzas. Again there was a wild ovation and
prolonged applause. And again, it was the anthem and not me.

So now let me tell you how it came to be written.

In 1812, the United States went to war with Great Britain, primarily over
freedom of the seas. We were in the right. For two years, we held off the
British, even though we were still a rather weak country. Great Britain
was in a life and death struggle with Napoleon. In fact, just as the
United States declared war, Napoleon marched off to invade Russia. If he
won, as everyone expected, he would control Europe, and Great Britain
would be isolated. It was no time for her to be involved in an American
war.

At first, our seamen proved better than the British. After we won a battle
on Lake Erie in 1813, the American commander, Oliver Hazard Perry, sent
the message "We have met the enemy and they are ours." However, the weight
of the British navy beat down our ships eventually. New England, hard-hit
by a tightening blockade, threatened secession.

Meanwhile, Napoleon was beaten in Russia and in 1814 was forced to
abdicate. Great Britain now turned its attention to the United States,
launching a three-pronged attack. The northern prong was to come down Lake
Champlain toward New York and seize parts of New England. The southern
prong was to go up the Mississippi, take New Orleans and paralyze the
west. The central prong was to head for the mid-Atlantic states and then
attack Baltimore, the greatest port south of New York. If Baltimore was
taken, the nation, which still hugged the Atlantic coast, could be split
in two. The fate of the United States, then, rested to a large extent on
the success or failure of the central prong.

The British reached the American coast, and on August 24, 1814, took
Washington, D. C. Then they moved up the Chesapeake Bay toward Baltimore.
On September 12, they arrived and found 1000 men in Fort McHenry, whose
guns controlled the harbor. If the British wished to take Baltimore, they
would have to take the fort.

On one of the British ships was an aged physician, William Beanes, who had
been arrested in Maryland and brought along as a prisoner. Francis Scott
Key, a lawyer and friend of the physician, had come to the ship to
negotiate his release. The British captain was willing, but the two
Americans would have to wait. It was now the night of September 13, and
the bombardment of Fort McHenry was about to start.

As twilight deepened, Key and Beanes saw the American flag flying over
Fort McHenry. Through the night, they heard bombs bursting and saw the red
glare of rockets. They knew the fort was resisting and the American flag
was still flying. But toward morning the bombardment ceased, and a dread
silence fell. Either Fort McHenry had surrendered and the British flag
flew above it, or the bombardment had failed and the American flag still
flew.

As dawn began to brighten the eastern sky, Key and Beanes stared out at
the fort, trying to see which flag flew over it. He and the physician must
have asked each other over and over, "Can you see the flag?"

After it was all finished, Key wrote a four stanza poem telling the events
of the night. Called "The Defence of Fort M'Henry," it was published in
newspapers and swept the nation. Someone noted that the words fit an old
English tune called "To Anacreon in Heaven" --a difficult melody with an
uncomfortably large vocal range. For obvious reasons, Key's work became
known as "The Star Spangled Banner," and in 1931 Congress declared it the
official anthem of the United States.

Now that you know the story, here are the words. Presumably, the old
doctor is speaking. This is what he asks 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, through 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 thro' 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?

"Ramparts," in case you don't know, are the protective walls or other
elevations that surround a fort. The first stanza asks a question. The
second gives an answer:

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!

"The towering steep" is again, the ramparts. The bombardment has failed,
and the British can do nothing more but sail away, their mission a failure.

In the third stanza, I feel Key allows himself to gloat over the American
triumph. In the aftermath of the bombardment, Key probably was in no mood
to act otherwise.

During World War II, when the British were our staunchest allies, this
third stanza was not sung. However, I know it, so here it is:

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 footstep's 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.

The fourth stanza, a pious hope for the future, should be sung more slowly
than the other three and with even deeper feeling:

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 Pow'r that hath made and preserved us a nation.

Then conquer we must, for our cause is just,
And this be our motto--"In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

I hope you will look at the national anthem with new eyes. Listen to it,
the next time you have a chance, with new ears.

And don't let them ever take it away.

--Isaac Asimov