No…it does not end with “Play Ball!”

We hear the music begin to play, and we rise and face the flag.  Some of us place our hand over our heart.  Some even risk public embarrassment about our lack of vocal range and sing along.  I can remember being in elementary school and learning the words to our National Anthem.  I’m not sure that most of the present generation of school children really know the words.  They mumble and fumble and do their best; but the language is archaic and the passion for freedom that we were taught seems a bit watered down these days.  I invite you today to imagine that you are Francis Scott Key.  Imagine that night has fallen during the course of a battle and you have been waiting restlessly for the sun to rise and for some news of who had been victorious.  Imagine the moment when his worry was replaced by joy — the moment when he saw that Fort McHenry still flew the American flag.

Did you remember that the Star Spangled Banner has four stanzas?  I present them for you here in hope that you will hear in them the passion of one man as he witnessed the triumph of liberty over oppression.  ”Tis the star spangled banner, oh long may it wave!  O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

The Star Spangled Banner

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 thru 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 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 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 in 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 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!

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n 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 1814