Monday, June 21, 2010

How many words are in this?

Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,



What so proudly we hail'd 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?



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?



On the shore dimly seen, thro' 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 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.

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