The foe long since in silence slept; Alike the conqueror silent sleeps; And Time the ruined bridge has swept Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.
On this green bank, by this soft stream, We set to-day a votive stone; That memory may their dead redeem, When, like our sires, our sons are gone.
Spirit, that made those heroes dare To die, and leave their children free, Bid Time and Nature gently spare The shaft we raise to them and thee.
Stand! the ground's your own, my braves! Will ye give it up to slaves? Will ye look for greener graves? Hope ye mercy still? What's the mercy despots feel? Hear it in that battle peal! Read it on yon bristling steel! Ask it--ye who will.
Fear ye foes who kill for hire? Will ye to your homes retire? Look behind you!--they're afire! And, before you, see Who have done it! From the vale On they come!--and will ye quail? Leaden rain and iron hail Let their welcome be!
In the God of battles trust! Die we may--and die we must; But, oh, where can dust to dust Be consigned so well, As where heaven its dews shall shed On the martyred patriot's bed, And the rocks shall raise their head, Of his deeds to tell?
Breathes there the man, with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land! Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned, As home his footsteps he hath turned From wandering on a foreign strand! If such there breathe, go, mark him well; For him no minstrel raptures swell; High though his titles, proud his name, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim; Despite those titles, power, and pelf, The wretch, concentered all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust, from whence he sprung, Unwept, unhonored, and unsung.
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 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 that 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, now conceals, now 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.