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So, ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ started life as a poem called ‘The Defence of Fort M’Henry’, was written not by one of America’s leading poets of the day but by an amateur, and – despite being written in 1814 – only became the official US national anthem in 1931. These words, of course, have become famous beyond the poem (or song): many people refer to the United States as the ‘land of the free’, especially.
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(Ironically, in light of the circumstances surrounding the composition of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’, ‘Rule, Britannia’ is about the might of the British navy: ‘Britannia, rule the waves’.) Throughout ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’, Francis Scott Key uses the refrain, ‘O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave’.
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This is a message carried by many other national anthems, unofficial or otherwise: one of Britain’s most popular national songs (although not its national anthem), ‘ Rule, Britannia’, proudly proclaims that ‘Britons never, never, never shall be slaves’. The US flag with its stars and stripes waves freely over the land of the free, declaring America’s freedom from tyranny or oppression at the hands of another power. (It’s worth bearing in mind that less than forty years earlier, the United States was still fighting a war with Britain over US independence.) But, in a clever image, Key says that the confident footprints the British left as they marched to attack the American fort have been washed away by the blood of the British wounded and slain it’s a neat metaphor that encapsulates the idea of arrogance being destroyed by humiliating defeat.īut freedom is the message that shines through more than any other. Where the second stanza called the British fleet a ‘haughty host’, suggesting it was sheer arrogance and superiority which led the Brits to attack Baltimore Harbour and Fort McHenry, Key continues this line of argument in the third stanza: the British navy ‘vauntingly swore’ that the confusion of battle would leave the Americans without a home or a country. O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave. One of the events during his presidency was the composition of a poem called the 'The Defence of Fort McHenry' by Francis Scott Key (1779-1843). No refuge could save the hireling and slaveįrom the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:Īnd the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave, Star Spangled Banner Lyrics James Madison was the 4th American President who served in office from Mato March 4, 1817. Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution. That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,Ī home and a country, should leave us no more? Lord of battles in Thy might, Put our enemies to flight, Let our cause be just and right, God defend New Zealand.
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Thy choicest gifts in store, On her be pleased to pour Long may she reign: May she defend our laws, And ever give us cause To sing with heart and voice God save the Queen. And where is that band who so vauntingly swore Peace, not war, shall be our boast, But, should foes assail our coast, Make us then a mighty host, God defend our free land. England National Anthem Lyrics God save our gracious Queen, Long live our noble Queen, God save the Queen: Send her victorious, Happy and glorious, Long to reign over us: God save the Queen.