And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air
The United States of America was gestated by violence in continuous war against indigenous tribes and the Dutch, born of matricidal violence in revolution against the "mother country", Great Britain, grew on the violence of slavery and fractured from violence for four years during the American Civil War (1861-65). In its first one hundred years the United States of America was at war in forty-six. It was at war with Britain for eleven of its first thirty-nine years.
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution. What became its national anthem, violent and celebratory, was composed during the War of 1812 (1812-1815). Despite all of the trouble with Great Britain, composer Francis Scott Key's lyrics were put to the melody of a British song, To Anacreon in Heaven, popular in America at the time.
Born of schizophrenic violence. It was not the first, nor would it be the last, time America appropriated from the country that birthed it.
