The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil; he shall preserve thy soul.
The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth and even for evermore.
THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER.
BY FRANCIS SCOTT KEY.
Francis Scott Key was born in Frederick County, Maryland, in 1780. He was the author of a volume of poems published in 1857, but the poem that will keep him alive in the memory of the nation is his “Star Spangled Banner.” This poem was written on shipboard during the war of 1812, while the English were bombarding Fort McHenry. Mr. Key died at Baltimore in 1843.
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 thro’ 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;
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 thro’ 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 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!
FROM “IN MEMORIAM.”
BY ALFRED TENNYSON.
O, yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill,
To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood;