Wednesday, July 04, 2007
It is the glorious Fourth and at the risk of seeming theocratic, the Pendragon was reminded today of how even as warlike a song as our national anthem has been politically-corrected into the harmless, mealy-mouthed version we sing at baseball games. Yet this song was written at the height of war in which almost all news from the front was bad--where "pitched battle" and "American victory" became mutually exclusive terms. A young lawyer named Francis Scott Key watched all night as a British fleet pounded the American garrision at Fort McHenry in the Chesapeake. The first light of morning revealed that the Americans had held their own. The Pendragon can only imagine the emotion he must have felt. The song was designed to raise morale, and it should, even today. But there is more--being America, devoted to certain ideals, demands a certain amount of responsibility. Our cause must be the cause of justice and our goal in all things should be the protection of our people and our country. Not sure what I'm talking about? Here is the song in its entirety. Happy Independence Day!
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 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 foes' haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze o'er the towering deep
As it fitfully blows, half-conceals, half-discloses,
Now it catches the beam of the morning's first gleam,
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!
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 can save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight and the doom of the grave!
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
And thus be it ever when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the 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!
Then the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
// posted by The Pendragon @ 10:01 PM 
