JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE.

* * * * *

THE STAR-BANGLED BANNER.[A]

[Footnote A:  Begun during the attack on Fort McHenry, by a British fleet, which on the night of Sept. 13, 1814, unsuccessfully bombarded that fort from the river Chesapeake; the author, an envoy from the city of Baltimore, having been detained as a prisoner on the fleet.]

  O, 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 clouds of the 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;
  O! say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
  O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?

  On that 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, now conceals, now 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!  O, 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!

  O! 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 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.

FRANCIS SCOTT KEY.

* * * * *

NEW ENGLAND’S DEAD.

  New England’s dead!  New England’s dead! 
    On every hill they lie;
  On every field of strife, made red
    By bloody victory. 
  Each valley, where the battle poured
    Its red and awful tide,
  Beheld the brave New England sword
    With slaughter deeply dyed. 
  Their bones are on the northern hill,
    And on the southern plain,
  By brook and river, lake and rill,
    And by the roaring main.