Francis Scott Key photo

Francis Scott Key

American lawyer and poet Francis Scott Key witnessed the British attack on Fort McHenry at Baltimore on 13/14 September 1814 and afterward wrote "

Defense of Fort M'Henry

," the poem, set to the music of an 18th-century tune, called "

To Anacreon in Heaven

," renamed "

The Star-Spangled Banner

," which Congress adopted in 1931 as the national anthem.

This author and amateur from Georgetown was a distant cousin and the namesake of Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis...


“Oh, say can you see by the dawn’s early lightWhat 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 waveO’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 waveO’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!And where is that band who so vauntingly sworeThat 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 slaveFrom the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth waveO’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall standBetween their loved home and the war’s desolation!Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n rescued landPraise 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 waveO’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!”
Francis Scott Key
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“Nothing but Christianity will give you the victory. Until a man believes in his heart that Jesus Christ is his Lord and Master... his course through life will be neither safe nor pleasant. My only regret is that I was so long blinded by my pleasures, my vices and pursuits, and the examples of others that I was kept fr...om seeing, admiring, and adoring the marvelous light of the gospel.”
Francis Scott Key
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“O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall standBetween their loved home and the war's desolation!Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued landPraise 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 waveO'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!”
Francis Scott Key
Read more