Feeling the Fourth

This is a special time of year. We are not only starting a new month but we are about to embrace the celebration of our independence as a nation. Yes, the 4th of July is right around the corner. Many thoughts come to mind when we think about the Fourth. Many think about cook outs with family and friends but the majority instantly think about fireworks. Those small, medium, and large bundles of gunpowder and other ingredients that make such a show in the sky. It is very easy for us to picture all the colors and the loud bangs as the fireworks go off.

There was another time when loud bangs were going off and smoke filled the air. It was during the Revolutionary War. It was at this time that Francis Scott Key stepped out in the early morning hours and was moved when he saw the torn and ragged flag of our young nation still flying in the air. He penned the words of the Star Spangled Banner that day. The words ring true and are delivered with the emotion and passion he felt. They go like this:

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 thru the perilous fight,

O'er the ramparts 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 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 footsteps' 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 home and the war's desolation!

Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n 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!

We, as writers, love words; we love words that drive home a message and stir emotions and feelings long thought hidden away. On the Fourth when we hear, sing or read these words it is impossible to think that we don't feel what our forefather's felt while establishing this land.