[TheForge] The Anthem

[Jerry Frost]

Support our troops.  Remember our Veterans


!!HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY, EVERYONE!!



  Our National Anthem
   BY DR. ISAAC ASIMOV




   Editor's Note - Near the end of his life the great 
science fiction author Isaac Asimov wrote a short story 
about the four stanzas of our national anthem. However 
brief, this well-circulated piece is an eye opener from 
the dearly departed doctor......

   I have a weakness -- I am crazy. absolutely nuts, 
about our national anthem. The words are difficult and 
the tune is almost impossible, but frequently when I'm 
taking a shower I sing it with as much power and 
emotion as I can. It shakes me up every time.

   I was once asked to speak at a luncheon. Taking my 
life in my hands, I announced I was going to sing our 
national anthem -- all four stanzas. This was greeted 
with loud groans. One man closed the door to the 
kitchen, where the noise of dishes and cutlery was loud 
and distracting. "Thanks, Herb," I said.
"That's all right," he said. "It was at the request of 
the kitchen staff."

   I explained the background of the anthem and then 
sang all four stanzas. Let me tell you, those people 
had never heard it before -- or had never really 
listened. I got a standing ovation. But it was not me; 
it was the anthem.

   More recently, while conducting a seminar, I told my 
students the story of the anthem and sang all four 
stanzas. Again there was a wild ovation and prolonged 
applause. And again, it was the anthem and not me.

   So now let me tell you how it came to be written.

   In 1812, the United States went to war with Great 
Britain, primarily over freedom of the seas. We were in 
the right. For two years, we held off the British, even 
though we were still a rather weak country. Great 
Britain was in a life and death struggle with Napoleon. 
In fact, just as the United States declared war, 
Napoleon marched off to invade Russia. If he won, as 
everyone expected, he would control Europe, and Great 
Britain would be isolated. It was no time for her to be 
involved in an American war.

   At first, our seamen proved better than the British. 
After we won a battle on Lake Erie in 1813, the 
American commander, Oliver Hazard Perry, sent the 
message, "We have met the enemy and they are ours." 
However, the weight of the British navy beat down our 
ships eventually. New England, hard-hit by a tightening 
blockade, threatened secession.

   Meanwhile, Napoleon was beaten in Russia and in 1814 
was forced to abdicate. Great Britain now turned its 
attention to the United State s, launching a 
three-pronged attack.

   The northern prong was to come down Lake Champlain 
toward New York and seize parts of New England.

   The southern prong was to go up the Mississippi, 
take New Orleans and paralyze the west.

   The central prong was to head for the mid-Atlantic 
states and then attack Baltimore, the greatest port 
south of New York. If Baltimore was taken, the nation, 
which still hugged the Atlantic coast, could be split 
in two. The fate of the United States, then, rested to 
a large extent on the success or failure of the central 
prong.

   The British reached the American coast, and on 
August 24, 1814, took Washington, D.C. Then they moved 
up the Chesapeake Bay toward Baltimore. On September 
12, they arrived and found 1,000 men in Fort McHenry, 
whose guns controlled the harbor. If the British wished 
to take Baltimore, they would have to take the fort.

   On one of the British ships was an aged physician, 
William Beanes, who had been arrested in Maryland and 
brought along as a prisoner. Francis Scott Key, a 
lawyer and friend of the physician, had come to the 
ship to negotiate his release.  The British captain was 
willing, but the two Americans would have to wait. It 
was now the night of September 13, and the bombardment 
of Fort McHenry was about to start.

   As twilight deepened, Key and Beanes saw the 
American flag flying over Fort McHenry. Through the 
night, they heard bombs bursting and saw the red glare 
of rockets. They knew the fort was resisting and the 
American flag was still flying. But toward morning the 
bombardment ceased, and a dread silence fell. Either 
Fort McHenry had surrendered and the British flag flew 
above it, or the bombardment had failed and the 
American flag still flew.

   As dawn began to brighten the eastern sky, Key and 
Beanes stared out at the fort, trying to see which flag 
flew over it. He and the physician must have asked each 
other over and over, "Can you see the flag?"

   After it was all finished, Key wrote a four stanza 
poem telling the events of the night. Called "The 
Defense of Fort McHenry," it was published in 
newspapers and swept the nation. Someone noted that the 
words fit an old English tune called, "To Anacreon in 
Heaven" -- a difficult melody with an uncomfortably 
large vocal range. For obvious reasons, Key's work 
became known as "The Star Spangled Banner," and in 1931 
Congress declared it the official anthem of the United 
States.


Anthem

   Now that you know the story, here are the words.
   Presumably, the old doctor is speaking.
   This is what he asks Key:

   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, 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 thro' 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?

  "Ramparts," in case you don't know, are the 
protective walls
  or other elevations that surround a fort.
  The first stanza asks a question.
  The second gives an answer:

   On the shore, dimly seen thro' the mist 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 on 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!

  "The towering steep" is again, the ramparts.
   The bombardment has failed, and the British can do 
nothing more
   but sail away, their mission a failure.
  In the third stanza, I feel Key allows himself to 
gloat over the American triumph.
  In the aftermath of the bombardment, Key probably was 
in no mood to act otherwise.

   During World War II, when the British were our 
staunchest allies,
  this third stanza was not sung. However, I know it, 
so here it is:

   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 footstep's 
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.

   The fourth stanza, a pious hope for the future,
   should be sung more slowly
   than the other three and with even deeper feeling:

   Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
   Between their loved homes and the war's desolation,
   Blest with victory and peace, may the Heaven - 
rescued land
   Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a 
nation.
   Then conquer we must, for our cause is just,
   And this be our motto --"In God is our trust."
   And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
   O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

   I hope you will look at the national anthem with new 
eyes.
   Listen to it, the next time you have a chance, with 
new ears,
   and don't let them ever take it away.



Happy 4th. EVERYBODY

Frosty
-------------------------------
If it ain't forged
it ain't real.
Wrought iron is.
The FrostWorks

Meadow Lakes, AK.

http://www.artmetalradio.com/