page_title: The Star-Spangled Banner
section_title: Lyrics
hierarchical_section_title: The Star-Spangled Banner / Lyrics
caption_attribution_description: Cover of sheet music for "The Star-Spangled Banner" [words by Francis Scott Key], transcribed for piano by Ch. Voss, Philadelphia: G. Andre &amp; Co., 1862
context_page_description: "The Star-Spangled Banner" is the national anthem of the United States. The lyrics come from the "Defence of Fort M'Henry", a poem written on September 14, 1814, by 35-year-old lawyer and amateur poet Francis Scott Key after witnessing the bombardment of Fort McHenry by British ships of the Royal Navy in Baltimore Harbor during the Battle of Baltimore in the War of 1812. Key was inspired by the large U.S. flag, with 15 stars and 15 stripes, known as the Star-Spangled Banner, flying triumphantly above the fort during the U.S. victory.
  The poem was set to the tune of a popular British song written by John Stafford Smith for the Anacreontic Society, a men's social club in London. "To Anacreon in Heaven", with various lyrics, was already popular in the United States. This setting, renamed "The Star-Spangled Banner", soon became a well-known U.S. patriotic song. With a range of 19 semitones, it is known for being very difficult to sing. Although the poem has four stanzas, only the first is commonly sung today.
context_section_description: 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 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;
  
  O 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, 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 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!
caption: Cover of sheet music for "The Star-Spangled Banner", transcribed for piano by Ch. Voss, Philadelphia: G. Andre & Co., 1862
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