Editor’s note: Charles Nelson of Corvallis, a thoughtful reader, asked us a very good question: Why don’t we ever sing all four verses of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at public events? In the alternative, he suggested, why don’t we publish all four verses?

Well, that sounded like a good idea to us. First, a little background about the song that many of us mumble reverently (because we don’t actually know all the lyrics) at major events:

The song’s drama is matched by its history: It was written during the war of 1812, after the British decided they didn’t approve of a renegade upstart nation challenging their supremacy of the seas. On Aug. 24, 1814, the British had taken Washington, D.C., and then marched up the Chesapeake Bay. They arrived Sept. 12 and came up against 1,000 staunch Americans defending Fort McHenry — all that stood between them and Baltimore.

Francis Scott Key, a lawyer, was brought to a British ship to negotiate the release of an ailing prisoner, William Beanes. His timing was precarious: The British were about to bombard Fort McHenry the night of Sept. 13.

From the ship, Key could see the American flag flying high above the fort in the deepening twilight. Then the night-long bombardment began — just as described in the song.

When dawn broke, Key could see that Fort McHenry’s tough defenders had not. The flag was still there. He wrote a poem, titled “The Defence of For M’Henry” and someone set it (somewhat ironically) to an old British song, “To Anacreon in Heaven.”

So, here we reprint all four verses. The second one answers the questions posed at the end of the first. We make no judgments about their literary quality. Their history is reason enough to remember them.

‘The Star-Spangled Banner’

1814, by Francis Scott Key

Oh! 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 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?

q

On the shore, dimly seen thro’ the mist 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. Oh! long may it wave

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

q

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.

q

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand

Between their loved homes and the war’s desolation,

Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the Heav’n — rescued land

Praise the Pow’r that hath made and preserved us a nation.

Then conquer we must, for our cause is just,

And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”

And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.