Our National Anthem’s Two Questions
As we celebrate our nation’s independence, it might be worth recalling that the first stanza [1] of our National Anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner,” poses two questions but answers only the first, leaving the second for each generation to wrestle with.
Some of you may now be singing the song to yourselves, figuring out just what the anthem poses. Let me save you the trouble. The first question is presented in the song’s opening lines:
O, say can you see by the dawn’s early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?”
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?”
In other words, did our flag survive the bombardment of Fort McHenry in what is known as the Battle of Baltimore in 1814? It was still flying, the lyrics assure us:
And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
However, Francis Scott Key poses a second question–which he does not answer–in the last two lines of the first stanza:
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
I suspect that most of us do not think of it as a question. We sing it, loudly and proudly, telling the world that we are the land of the free and the home of the brave. But Key wrote it as a question, not an Our National Anthem’s Two Questions | Taking Note: