Poem for the 4th of July
Below is the last stanza of Francis Scott Key’s poem “The Star Spangled Banner.” It seems to be both celebrating war and pleading for peace. What an American sentiment that is and how appropriate for where we are now as a nation.
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!
(via The Writer’s Almanac).