The stars and stripes still sing,
their song of freedom unwavering.
O say, can you see it? Can you hear the flag unfurl?
The dawns light will come.
Do we still so proudly hail it?
Twilights are gleaming three nights until then,
the broad stripes and stars may gleam again,
against the fights of unfortunate peril,
the flag can still stand, mend man’s broken land.
Do we still see it over ramparts, see it still streaming wild and free?
Rockets of words and riots blare,
bombs bursting of bitterness and bribery through the air.
Hopeful rulers arise with less of a care
of where she came from
and how she got there.
Liars lay in wait,
mockers will scorn,
spit upon her stripes,
burn a hole through her soul.
But some will come with courage to give sight.
To tell the old story of love and freedoms beginning fight.
Of a young George Washington not with gray hair and wig
but of 21 with sword and a steed, he fought and arose,
from down on his knees,
as his horse fell not once but thrice in one night.
Then years onward he forged through
the Valley deep and beyond, to give us the flag and our freedoms song.
Other men arose as spy’s and soldiers,
who fought the fight on freedoms side,
to give us hope for years to come,
that freedom is for everyone.
Men of young and old desired to see,
sons and daughters grow,
free and with liberty,
approved the declaration penned by Thomas Jefferson, at the age of merely 33.
Blood was shed, loves were lost, for the rights the Constitution cost.
The laws have protected the way of the land.
United, no other nation against her will stand.
But some will come in the name of change.
Government becomes greed, less freedom they say
you need. Do not give hear to new governments folly,
of new plans and ways, to change the laws the constitution made.
And the men that signed that Constitution,
that lets us live wild and free?
The Founding Fathers whom some mock and disagree,
were most men under forty-four, who had fought the Revolutionary War years before.
Young, brave, and they knew the sound that freedom rang.
Oh, say can you still see it wave?
The men and women their lives they gave, for freedoms sake,
for children and their children to live in liberty their deaths made.
Does it still wave and over the free?
Are we still the brave and do we still believe?
Men fallen in wars not in vain but in victory.
The fights were just, our motto “In God we Trust.”
Will it still wave? And in triumph over the plains?
Will it still be the land of the free because of the brave?
Oh say, can you see it?
Can you hear the flag unfurl?
Does it still give proof through the night,
that the flag means Freedom, Liberty, and Light.
B.E. Fair