hed 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 land 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 homes and wild war's desolation;
Blest with vict'ry and peace may the Heaven-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!

FRANCIS SCOTT KEY.

THE DEFENSE OF THE CRESCENT CITY

UPON every recurrence of January the eighth, the city of New Orleans
dons gala attire and shouts herself hoarse with rejoicing. She chants
the _Te Deum_ in her Cathedrals; and lays wreaths of immortelles and
garlands of roses and sweet-smelling shrubs upon the monument of Andrew
Jackson in Jackson Square.

"The Saviour of New Orleans," the inhabitants called Jackson in the
exuberance of their gratitude for his defense of the city, and their
deliverance from threatened peril, that fateful day of January, 1815.
From capture and pillage and divers evil things he saved her, and the
Crescent City has not forgotten.

Neither indeed has the nation become unmindful of his great achievement,
but upon each succeeding anniversary of the battle of New Orleans-