O 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 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?
If you were not sleeping during class in fifth grade, you know the history of these lyrics. They were written by Francis Scott Key in 1814, originally as a poem: “Defence of Fort M’Henry.” He had witnessed the British bombardment of Fort McHenry in Baltimore during the War of 1812, and at dawn, he saw the American flag flying over the fort. That sight inspired him to write the poem.
But, if you listen again — and if necessary, sing it again — you may notice something else.
The first line is a direct question (“O say can you see … ?”), and the last line closes with a question mark (“home of the brave?”). The song is one long question, and those lines emerged out of war-induced anxiety and fear.
It is as if every singing of the song provokes that question: Does the flag still wave? (Yes, it does).
America itself is a series of questions that are far more enduring than whether that flag will still wave over a fort. Among them: Are we still “the land of the free and the home of the brave?”
Lyrically speaking, however, my favorite patriotic song is “America the Beautiful” — if only for the absolutely gorgeous, evocative words in the stanzas that people rarely sing. Each contains a sermon on America itself:
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!
It tells us that we evaluate our individual and collective soul by how well we control our passions, and how we balance our freedom with responsibility.
And then:
America! America!
May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness,
And every gain divine!
This is not about the refining process of a rare metal. It is about the spiritual refining process of what we seek to gain, and how we can lift our vision above the sordid to the sacred.
And then, these words will always bring a lump to my throat:
O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years,
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
I remember singing them at a memorial service following 9/11. It reminded me that, yes, our city would gleam yet again, even in the blur of our tears.
