The Immortal Francis S. Key.
ON the night of September 15, 1814, whilst the British fleet, under the command of the English Admiral Cochrane, were bombarding Fort M’Henry, at the city of Baltimore, Francis S. Key, was divinely inspired with the sublime sight of the glorious Banner of the Union still waving over the Fort, and a thousand times reflected, multiplying and increasing in splendor, in every stream of fire throughout the skies, every glare meeting every leaping wave of the billowy Chesapeake Bay, the heavens and waters together joined, each wave glaring with new admired light; but, when the Fort resisted all the efforts of the British ships-of-war, and forced the Admiral to retire, amidst the joyous exultation, the great shouts of the countless hosts of freemen, “Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously!” “The Flag of the Union still triumphs!” Who? Oh! Who can imagine the feelings of Francis S. Key, as o’er his head the flying bombs sang terribly, spent their force in air, and roused all the internal powers of his poetic spirit, his inspired soul to sing still louder?
“Oh! say can you see by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming;
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thro’ the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watch’d were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets red glare, and bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro’ the night that our Flag was still there.