A DAY EARLY

Since we currently are on a long holiday weekend, this year our 4th of July non-fitness focus blog is being posted a day early.

It seemed appropriate to feature the whole of Francis Scott Key’s The Star-Bangled Banner, shown below, as a reminder that we uphold the 4th of July, not alone due to signing of the Declaration of Independence, but to American and British lives that were sacrificed during the Revolutionary War.

We recognize, as written in this 2016 article, Three Things You Didn’t Know About the American Revolution, by Professor Thomas Slaughter, that early Colonists were deeply divided about whether or not to dissolve ties with the British.

This July 4th, let’s take hope from our 250+ year history – that though a portion of the citizenry now finds itself divided into hostile political camps – conflicting emotions, passions, and prejudices will not prevail over desire to preserve the Union.

The Star-Spangled Banner

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 rocket’s red glare, the bomb 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 the 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 reflected now shines 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 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 wash’d 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.

O thus be it ever when freemen shall stand
Between their lov’d home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with vict’ry and peace may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the power that hath made and preserv’d 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.

Francis Scott Key – Maryland Historical Society Collection.
WF!