'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? 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 the return to Baltimore he wrote the remaining stanzas and the poem appeared in the Baltimore 'American' of September 21, 1814, as a 'broadside.' The stirring measures of the song have never lost their hold on the American people, and the piece has taken its place among the great national anthems of the world. The next national song, in chronological order, is the popular 'Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean' ('The Red, White and Blue'). Its history is not so romantic. Thomas à Becket, an English actor in 1843, playing at that time in Philadelphia, wrote both the verses and the music, after rejecting a set of verses written by David T. Shaw, a singer then appearing at the 'Museum,' also in Philadelphia. It first appeared, however, as the work of Shaw--until à Becket convinced the publisher of his authorship--after which it was so published, with the inscription 'Sung by D. T. Shaw.' When the author of the song visited England in 1847 he found the song already 'naturalized' as 'Britannia, the Pride of the Ocean,' and it has since become a favorite of the British army and navy. The national song répertoire received no further notable accessions till the Civil War, a period terrible and wonderful, that called forth expressions of exalted feeling on both sides of the struggle, North and South. 'The Star Spangled Banner' was at first claimed by both sides. But all attempts to adapt the song by the addition of new verses seem to have failed. The South found an early substitute in such songs as 'Maryland, My Maryland,' which James Ryder Randall wrote to suit the melody of the old German folk-tune _O Tannenbaum_. The occasion for this effusion was the attack on the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment while marching through Baltimore. Of all the other Southern war songs only one has survived, and that was of Northern origin. 'Dixie's Land' was, we have already seen, originally a 'walk-around' dance, written for Bryant's Minstrels by one of their number, Dan Emmett. There has been so much discussion of the circumstances of its birth that it may be well to quote an eye-witness, so to speak, namely, Charley White, the minstrel, whose diary has already furnished us with some facts: