Hymne des USA

The Star Spangled Banner est l'hymne national des Etats-Unis d'Amérique, sur des paroles écrite en 1814 par Francis Scott Key, avocat et poète amateur alors agé de 35 ans. Des paroles écrites après avoir été témoin du bombardement du Fort McHenry à Baltimore (Maryland) par la flotte britannique dans la baie Chesapeake pendant la guerre de 1812.

Sur l'air de "To Anacreon in Heaven," une chanson populaire britannique, ses paroles deviennent célèbres comme le symbole du patriotisme américain. L'air est officiellement utilisé par la Navy à partir de 1889 et la Maison Blanche à partir 1916.

Une résolution du Congrès le fait devenir hymne national le 3 Mars 1931. Bien que la chanson ait 4 couplés, seul le premier est communément chanté aujourd'hui.

The Star Spangled Banner

I
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 rockets' 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?

II
On the shore, dimly seen through 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 on the stream :
'Tis the star-spangled banner! O long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

III
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 footsteps' 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!

IV
O thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and 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, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto : "In God is our trust".
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!