"THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 94, 10 April 1941, Page 9

"THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER"

America's National Song Had Roundabout Origin WENTY-FIVE centuries ago a young Greek decided to accompany his fellow-towns-men of the Ionian city of Teos, in preference to remaining behind to face the advancing armies of the se conqueror, Cyrus the Great. e great Greek was Anacreon, who became one of his country’s finest lyric poets. In light and flowing strains he sang the praise of wine and beauty and died at the ripe age of 83. Tradition has it that his death came about through his being choked by a dried grape. Most of Anacreon’s poems were lost; but the spirit of his works lived on and in the. eighteenth century a group of his devotees in London organised the Anacreontic Society to perpetuate his memory. One member, John Stafford Smith, wrote a drinking song for the club and called it "Anacreon in Heaven." The tune is believed to have been borrowed from a peasant folk song from Brittany, but if it were heard by the average American to-day he would probably stand up and take off his hat. He would swear it to be "The Star Spangled Banner." In a way he would be right, for the words were fitted to that tune (slightly altered) and in that way America got her national anthem. The romance behind the poem can be told briefly:

War of 1814 It was written by a young law student of Baltimore, Francis Scott Key, during the second war between Britain and America in 1814. The British frigate H.M.S. Surprise was in Baltimore waters with some Americans on board as prisoners. One of these, Dr. Beanes, was a friend of Key. Armed with credentials from President Madison, Key went on board the Surprise to negotiate for the exchange of prisoners and to gain the freedom of his friend. In the meantime the British planned an attack on the fort and kept Key on board until after the attack for fear he would carry the news back to his countrymen. The American flag, with its stars and stripes, "the star-spangled banner," floated proudly over Fort McHenry, and all day long Francis Key watched it anxiously. If it were lowered it would mean that the British had taken the fort. When night fell the flag could no longer be seen. The attack went on all night, and he longed for daylight to return to see if the flag was still flying. When at last the night was ended, to his great joy he could see the starspangled banner still floating over the fort, and he knew that the British had been unable to take Fort McHenry. Francis Key put his emotions into a poem on September 14, 1814. The opening lines are all the better understood when the history of the song is known: "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, thro’ the perilous fight, O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?" The words of the song first appeared as a handbill, the day after they were written. Then they appeared in The Baltimore Patriot on September 20, 1814. The original manuscript of the poem was sold in New York in 1933 for £4,800. Thus it comes about that America’s national anthem is sung to a French tune, which was popularised as an English drinking song, honouring a Greek poet.

B.

W.