Isaac Asimov

[Jim]

Unless you know all four stanzas of the Star Spangled Banner you may
find this most interesting. Perhaps most of you didn't realize what
Francis Scott Key's profession was or what he was doing on a ship.
This is a good brush-up on your history.

Near the end of his life, the great science fiction author Isaac Asimov
wrote a short story about the four stanzas of our national anthem. This
well-circulated piece is an eye opener from the dearly departed
doctor......

" I have a weakness -- I am crazy, absolutely nuts, about our national
anthem. The words are difficult and the tune is almost impossible, but
frequently when I'm taking a shower I sing it with as much power and
emotion as I can. It shakes me up every time."


NO REFUGE COULD SAVE :
BY DR. ISAAC ASIMOV



I was once asked to speak at a luncheon. Taking my life in my hands, I
announced I was going to sing our national anthem -- all four stanzas.
This was greeted with loud groans. One man closed the door to the
kitchen, where the noise of dishes and cutlery was loud and distracting.
"Thanks, Herb," I said. "That's all right," he said. "It was at the
request of the kitchen staff."

I explained the background of the anthem and then sang all four stanzas.
Let me tell you, those people had never heard it before -- or had never
really listened. I got a standing ovation. But it was not me; it was the
anthem.

More recently, while conducting a seminar, I told my students the story
of the anthem and sang all four stanzas. Again there was a wild ovation
and prolonged applause. And again, it was the anthem and not me.

So now let me tell you how it came to be written.

In 181 2, the United States went to war with Great Britain, primarily
over freedom of the seas. We were in the right. For two years, we held
off the British, even though we were still a rather weak country. Great
Britain was in a life and death struggle with Napoleon. In fact, just as
the United States declared war, Napoleon marched off to invade Russia.
If he won, as everyone expected, he would control Europe, and Great
Britain would be isolated. It was no time for her to be involved in an
Am erican war.


At first, our seamen proved better than the British. After we won a
battle on Lake Erie in 1813, the American commander, Oliver Hazard
Perry, sent the message, "We have met the enemy and they are ours."
However, the weight of the British navy beat down our ships eventually.
New England, hard-hit by a tightening blockade, threatened secession.

Meanwhile, Napoleon was beaten in Russia and in 1814 was forced to
abdicate. Great Britain now turned its attention to the United States,
launching a three-pronged attack.

The northern prong was to come down Lake Champlain toward New York and
seize parts of New England.

The southern prong was to go up the Mississippi, take New Orleans and
paralyze the west.

The central prong was to head for the mid-Atlantic states and then
attack Baltimore, the greatest port south of New York. If Baltimore was
taken, the nation, which still hugged the Atlantic coast, could be split
in two. The fate of the United States, then, rested to a large extent
on the success or failure of the central prong.

The British reached the American coast, and on August 24, 1814, took
Was hington, D.C. Then they moved up the Chesapeake Bay toward Baltimore.
On September 12, they arrived and found 1,000 men in Fort McHenry, whose
guns controlled the harbor. If the British wished to take Baltimore,
they would have to take the fort.

On one of the British ships was an aged physician, William Beanes, who
had been arrested in Maryland and brought along as a prisoner. Francis
Scott Key, a lawyer and friend of the physician, had come to the ship to
negotiate his release.

The British captain was willing, but the two Americans would have to
wait. It was now the night of Septem ber 13, and the bombardment of Fort
McHenry was about to start.

As twilight deepened, Key and Beanes saw the American flag flying over
Fort McHenry. Through the night, they heard bombs bursting and saw the
red glare of rockets. They knew the fort was resisting and the American
flag was still flying. But toward morning the bombardment ceased, and a
dread silence fell. Either Fort McHenry had surrendered and the British
flag flew above it, or the bombardment had failed and the American flag
still flew.

As dawn began to brighten the eastern sky, Key and Beanes stared out at
the fort, trying to see which flag flew over it. He and the physician
must have asked each other over and over, "Can you see the flag?"
After it was all finished, Key wrote a four stanza poem telling the
events of the night. Called "The Defense of Fort McHenry," it was
published in newspapers and swept the nation. Someone noted that the
words fit an old English tune called, "To Anacreon in Heaven" -- a
difficult melody with an uncomfortably large vocal range. For obvious
reasons, Key's work became known as "The Star Spangled Banner," and in
1931 Congress declared it the official anthem of the United States.

Now that you know the story, here are the words. Presumably, the old
doctor is speaking. This is what he asks Key:

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, through 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 thro' 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?

("Ramparts," in case you don't know, are the protective walls or other
elevations that surround a fort.) The first stanza asks a question.

The second gives an answer:

On the shore, dimly seen thro' the mist 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 on 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!

"The towering steep" is again, the ramparts. The bombardment has failed,
and the British can do nothing more but sail away, their mi ssion a
failure. In the third stanza I feel Key allows himself to gloat over the
American triumph. In the aftermath of the bombardment, Key probably was
in no mood to act otherwise? During World War I when the British were
our Staunchest allies, this third stanza was not sung. However, I know
it, so here it is:

And where is that band 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 footstep's 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.

(The fourth stanza, a pious hope for the future, should be sung more
slowly than the other three and with even deeper feeling):

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes an d the war's desolation,
Blest with victory and peace, may the Heaven - rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, for our cause is just,
And this be our motto --"In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

I hope you will look at the national anthem with new eyes. Listen to
it, the next time you have a chance, with new ears. Pay attention to
the words.

And don't let them ever take it away ... not even one word of it."

--Isaac Asimov, March 1991

And by the way - it's supposed to be sung in English!
It is interesting note that the late Dr. Asimov doesn't reveal is that
he is a Russian immigrant. It seems people who are TRULY oppressed by
their governments appreciate our country.

Asimov loved this country and saw what a shining jewel it was, even
though he was fairly liberal. Whereas the lefty pseudo-patriots here
burn our flag or spit on it. They laugh at those who take off their hats
and salute the flag. They belittle those who truly believe in "God and
country". They call our troops murderers and criminals. They actively
seek our defeat, as well as give aid, comfort, and support to the enemy,
and then bluster and caw if someone dares question their motives.

[DirtyM]

THAT is a great post...

[Maggot275]

Great post, Jim!! Great job!! I wish the left-wingers would quit ruining our country and read this and let it soak in. Well done.

[Ranger Ron]

Thanks Jim!!!!!! Your post could not be more timely. Probably the NY Times wouldn't publish that.

[rangerrg_c75]

Thanks Jim. Wish it could be taught in every school system in the country.
By the way, with Nov 11th coming up (what used to be Armistice Day);does anybody have a copy of "Flander's Field". If so please post it.

[Ranger Ron]

In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army
IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

[Draco]

Awesome posts...thanks!! :D

[RTO]

In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army
IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

McCrae's "In Flanders Fields" remains to this day one of the most memorable war poems ever written. It is a lasting legacy of the terrible battle in the Ypres salient in the spring of 1915. Here is the story of the making of that poem:

Although he had been a doctor for years and had served in the South African War, it was impossible to get used to the suffering, the screams, and the blood here, and Major John McCrae had seen and heard enough in his dressing station to last him a lifetime.

As a surgeon attached to the 1st Field Artillery Brigade, Major McCrae, who had joined the McGill faculty in 1900 after graduating from the University of Toronto, had spent seventeen days treating injured men -- Canadians, British, Indians, French, and Germans -- in the Ypres salient.

It had been an ordeal that he had hardly thought possible. McCrae later wrote of it:

"I wish I could embody on paper some of the varied sensations of that seventeen days... Seventeen days of Hades! At the end of the first day if anyone had told us we had to spend seventeen days there, we would have folded our hands and said it could not have been done."

One death particularly affected McCrae. A young friend and former student, Lieut. Alexis Helmer of Ottawa, had been killed by a shell burst on 2 May 1915. Lieutenant Helmer was buried later that day in the little cemetery outside McCrae's dressing station, and McCrae had performed the funeral ceremony in the absence of the chaplain.

The next day, sitting on the back of an ambulance parked near the dressing station beside the Canal de l'Yser, just a few hundred yards north of Ypres, McCrae vented his anguish by composing a poem. The major was no stranger to writing, having authored several medical texts besides dabbling in poetry.

In the nearby cemetery, McCrae could see the wild poppies that sprang up in the ditches in that part of Europe, and he spent twenty minutes of precious rest time scribbling fifteen lines of verse in a notebook.

A young soldier watched him write it. Cyril Allinson, a twenty-two year old sergeant-major, was delivering mail that day when he spotted McCrae. The major looked up as Allinson approached, then went on writing while the sergeant-major stood there quietly. "His face was very tired but calm as we wrote," Allinson recalled. "He looked around from time to time, his eyes straying to Helmer's grave."

When McCrae finished five minutes later, he took his mail from Allinson and, without saying a word, handed his pad to the young NCO. Allinson was moved by what he read:

"The poem was exactly an exact description of the scene in front of us both. He used the word blow in that line because the poppies actually were being blown that morning by a gentle east wind. It never occurred to me at that time that it would ever be published. It seemed to me just an exact description of the scene."

In fact, it was very nearly not published. Dissatisfied with it, McCrae tossed the poem away, but a fellow officer retrieved it and sent it to newspapers in England. The Spectator, in London, rejected it, but Punch published it on 8 December 1915.

[Gordo173]

Truely excellent posts. Thanks Jim for getting it started, Ranger Ron for 'Flanders Field' and RTO for the background. These are the kinds of tales that make history meaningful and put culture into perspective. I wonder what sorts of conclusions will be drawn by future generations on our current culture?

[Ranger Bill]

Thanks Jim. Wish it could be taught in every school system in the country.
By the way, with Nov 11th coming up (what used to be Armistice Day);does anybody have a copy of "Flander's Field". If so please post it.

All four verses of The Anthem and Flanders Field. Tears to my eyes and November 11 is my birthday. I am a very well qualified FOG at 27 plus 30.

[Chiron]

Great posts!!! I passed the Anthem to my old english teacher maybe he will think and push it through his classes. He has not retired yet.

[rangerrg_c75]

Thanks Ron. How many remember when "Flander's Field" was printed in the papers every Nov 11th. I remember when Veteran's Day was an important day in this country. How times have changed.

[23LRS]

Excellent Post! I always get goosebumps when I hear the National Anthem. Does anyone else ever want to reach out and slap those pricks that don't take their hats off or talk during the song when you are at a game?