Wisdom & Empowerment: The Orison Swett Marden Edition (18 Books in One Volume). Orison Swett Marden
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companions waited in painful suspense to know the result. In the intense silence that followed the cannonading, each one asked himself if the flag of his country was still waving on high, or if it had been hauled down to give place to that of England. They strained their eyes in the direction of Baltimore, but the darkness revealed nothing.
At last day dawned, and to their delight the little party saw the American flag still floating over Fort McHenry. Key's heart was stirred to its depths, and in a glow of patriotic enthusiasm he immediately wrote down a rough draft of "The Star-spangled Banner."
On his arrival in Baltimore he perfected the first copy of the song, and gave it to Captain Benjamin Eades, of the 27th Baltimore Regiment, saying that he wished it to be sung to the air of "Anacreon in Heaven." Eades had it put in type, and took the first proof to a famous old tavern near the Holliday Street Theater, a favorite resort of actors and literary people of that day. The verses were read to the company assembled there, and Frederick Durang, an actor, was asked to sing them to the air designated by the author. Durang, mounting a chair, sang as requested. The song was enthusiastically received. From that moment it became the great popular favorite that it has ever since been, and that it will continue to be as long as the American republic exists.
Key died in Baltimore on January 11, 1843. A monument was erected to his memory by the munificence of James Lick, a Californian millionaire. The sculptor to whom the work was intrusted was the celebrated W. W. Story, who completed it in 1887. The monument, which is fifty-one feet high, stands in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. It is built of travertine, in the form of a double arch, under which a bronze statue of Key is seated. A bronze figure, representing America with an unfolded flag, supports the arch.
On the occasion of the unveiling of this statue, the New York Home Journal contained an appreciative criticism of Key as a poet, and the following estimate of his greatest production.
"The poetry of the 'Star-spangled Banner' has touches of delicacy for which one looks in vain in most national odes, and is as near a true poem as any national ode ever was. The picture of the 'dawn's early light' and the tricolor, half concealed, half disclosed, amid the mists that wreathed the battle-sounding Patapsco, is a true poetic concept.
"The 'Star-spangled Banner' has the peculiar merit of not being a tocsin song, like the 'Marseillaise.' Indeed, there is not a restful, soothing, or even humane sentiment in all that stormy shout. It is the scream of oppressed humanity against its oppressor, presaging a more than quid pro quo; and it fitly prefigured the sight of that long file of tumbrils bearing to the Place de la Revolution the fairest scions of French aristocracy. On the other hand, 'God Save the King,' in its original, has one or two lines as grotesque as 'Yankee Doodle' itself; yet we have paraphrased it in 'America,' and made it a hymn meet for all our churches. But the 'Star-spangled Banner' combines dignity and beauty, and it would be hard to find a line of it that could be improved upon."
Over the simple grave of Francis Scott Key, in Frederick, Maryland, there is no other monument than the "star-spangled banner." In storm and in sunshine, in summer and in winter, its folds ever float over the resting place of the man who has immortalized it in verse. No other memorial could so fitly commemorate the life and death of this simple, dignified, patriotic American.
"A sweet, noble life," says a recent writer, "was that of the author of our favorite national hymn—a life of ideal refinement, piety, scholarly gentleness. Little did he think that his voice would be the storm song, the victor shout, of conquering America to resound down and down the ages!"
THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER
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 rampart we watched, were so gallantly streaming,
And the rocket's 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 on 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 footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave,
From the terror of death and the gloom of the grave,
And the star spangled banner in triumph shall 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 has made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, for 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!
II. AMERICA
"And there's a nice youngster of excellent pith;
Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith!
But he shouted a song for the brave and the free—
Just read on his medal, 'My Country of Thee.'"
In these lines of his famous Reunion Poem, "The Boys," Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes commemorated his old friend and college-mate, Dr. Samuel Francis Smith, author of "America."
Samuel Francis Smith was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on October 21, 1808. He attended the Latin School in his native city, and it is said that when only twelve years old he could "talk Latin." He entered Harvard College, Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1825, and graduated in the famous class of 1829, of which Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Freeman Clarke, William E. Channing, and other celebrated Americans were members.
Dr. Smith, like so many other noted men, "worked his way through college." He did this principally by coaching other students, and by making translations from the German "Conversations-Lexicon" for the "American Cyclopedia."
After graduating from Harvard, he immediately entered Andover Theological Seminary. Three years later, in 1832, he wrote, among others, his most famous hymn, "America," of which the "National Cyclopedia of American Biography" says, "It has found its way wherever an American heart beats or the English language is spoken, and has probably proved useful in stirring the patriotic spirit of the American people."
Dr. Smith himself often said that he had heard "America" sung "halfway round the world, under the earth in the caverns of Manitou, Colorado, and almost above the earth near the top of Pike's Peak."
The hymn, as every child knows, is sung to the air of the national anthem of England,—"God Save the King." The author came upon it in a book of German music, and by it was inspired to write the words of "America," a work which he accomplished in half an hour. Many years after, referring to its impromptu composition, he wrote: "If I had anticipated