"The Star-Spangled Banner" Revised

O 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 through the perilous fight,

O’er the ramparts we watch’d, were so gallantly streaming?

And the rockets’ 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 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 shines, reflected 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 who will retreat yet so vauntingly swore

That through havoc of war and the battle's confusion

A home and a country would embrace us no more?

They must cow’r in defeat to escape retribution.

No safe refuge behind could their futile siege find,

But terror of flight or the grave’s somber bind,

And our star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

O ever it be thus when freemen shall stand

Between all their lov’d homes and the war’s desolation,

Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the heav’n rescued land

Praise the Power that made and preserv’d us a nation!

Then to conquer we must, when our cause it is just,

And this our motto be – “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!