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 rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through 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? 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; Oh! 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 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. 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, 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! THE FLAG IN THE DARKNESS BENJAMIN HARRISON I was never so profoundly touched with the beauty of our flag as at night time in one of our immense political demonstrations. One of the features of the occasion was the sending upward of a mighty stream of electric light which, piercing the darkness of the night, reached a large flag which had been carried on cords a thousand feet from the earth. The scene was too impressive for me to describe. I can only say that it did seem as though the flag of our country was waving from the very battlements of heaven.... God pity the American citizen who does not love the flag; who does not see in it the story of our great, free institutions, and the hope of the home as well as the Nation. A SONG FOR FLAG DAY WILBUR D. NESBIT