O'er

Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

Hour after hour in hope he bore,nor might his soul its faith give o'er; nor could the tyrant's scorn deriding, steal from that faith one thought confiding!

The boy stood on the burning deck, Whence all but him had fled; The flame that lit the battle's wreck Shone round him o'er the dead.

Then fury spurred their courage, and behold, / As ravening wolves, when darkness hides the day, / Stung with mad fire of famine uncontrolled, / Prowl from their dens, and leave the whelps to stay, / With jaws athirst and gaping for the prey. / So to sure death, amid the darkness there, / Where swords, and spears, and foemen bar the way, / Into the centre of the town we fare. / Night with her shadowy cone broods o'er the vaulted air.

Yea, and more, / in war enduring, ere he built a home, / and his loved household-deities brought o'er / to Latium, whence the Latin people come, / whence rose the Alban sires, and walls of lofty Rome.

But, fearing this, the Sire omnipotent / hath buried them in caverns dark and deep, / and o'er them piled huge mountains in a heap, / and set withal a monarch, there to reign, / by compact taught at his command to keep / strict watch, and tighten or relax the rein.

Him now Saturnia sought, and thus in lowly strain: / "O AEolus, for Jove, of human kind / and Gods the sovran Sire, hath given to thee / to lull the waves and lift them with the wind, / a hateful people, enemies to me, / their ships are steering o'er the Tuscan sea, / bearing their Troy and vanquished gods away / to Italy."

These, horsed astride / a surge's crest, rock pendent o'er the deep; / to those the wave's huge hollow, yawning wide, / lays bare the ground below; dark swells the sandy tide.

Meanwhile great Neptune, sore amazed, perceived / the storm let loose, the turmoil of the sky, / and ocean from its lowest depths upheaved. / With calm brow lifted o'er the sea, his eye...

So sank the furious wave, / when through the clear sky looking o'er the main, / the sea-king lashed his steeds and slacked the favouring rein.