118 Unit 6© 2013 Core Knowledge Foundation
not the U.S. soldiers who had given up. It was the British sailors! They had stopped firing on the fort.
Key felt a surge of joy. He felt pride, too. The brave men in the fort had not given up!
what it was like to wait and wait—and then see the flag still flying in the morning. Key Key felt inspired. He hoped to share with others what he had seen. He needed to tell
reached into his pocket. He found an old letter. On the back, he wrote a poem. Here is the first part of his poem:
O 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 through the night that our flag was still there.
O say does that Star-Spangled Banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
Key did not know then that, one day, his poem would become our national anthem.