---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 2
number: 8
published: 1899-06
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations, "“The Star-Spangled Banner”," *Improvement Era* 2, no. 8 (June 1899): 583.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera28unse
  transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers.
  identifier: improvementera28unse
start_page: 583
end_page: 583
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1899-06)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera28unse
  publication_year: 1899
  note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1899, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# “The Star-Spangled Banner”

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ON LONGFELLOW S BRIDGE AT MIDNIGHT.                       583

                    The moon and its broken reflection,
                      And its shadows shall appear
                    As the symbol of love in heaven
                       And its broken image here."

        And so we left the beautiful Charles River, with its poetic
associations, and returned to the prosy routine of every-day life.
But Longfellow's bridge at midnight will always have a prominent
and pleasant place in our memory.

                   " THE   STAR-SPANGLED BANNER."

        "The Star-Spangled Banner," by Francis Scott Key, written September 14th, 1814, was inspired while witnessing the bombardment of Fort
McHenry.       These words were not the offspring of poetic fancy or
imagination, but what the writer actually saw and     felt.   Every word
undoubtedly came from his heart.     Key had left Baltimore under a flag
of truce to release a friend of his who was a prisoner on a British vessel.
They would not permit him       to return that day or the following night,
fearing that he would tell of their intended attack;      hence he watched
the flag the whole day with an anxiety better imagined than described.
All night he watched the bombshells, and at early dawn his eye was
greeted by the proud waving flag.       That night, while pacing the deck,
the song materialized in his mind and he scratched it on the back of a
letter.    The next morning he was permitted to land; he read the words
to the chief justice of Maryland for approval, who at once gave       it his

seal.     In less than an hour it was in the hands of the printer and was
received and hailed with great enthusiasm.     It was carried to thousands

of firesides as the most precious relic of the war of 1812.     The tune is
an old English air, that of "Anaceron in Heaven."