Having a hard time believing Francis Scott Key wrote this. The pentameter is all wrong. I’m sure that even song writers of the 18th century would cringe at the awkwardness of this “second verse”.
That being said, I love his patriotism and his clear. strong and beautiful voice. That’s what the Tea Party brings. God bless him and all the rest of us who “find teir voice” and sing their songs.
Could Key have had the soaring, and admittedly difficult tune we use now in mind? The popular story, at least, is that it was borrowed from an old drinking song, “To Anacreon In Heaven.” (Of which, amazingly for a song so old, the author is known — John Stafford Smith. He must have thought it great sport to punk a roomful of besotted Englishmen trying to sing it. If you passed out in the attempt, you had had too much wine. Now it challenges patrons of ballparks from coast to coast.) Anyhow, the verse has to be squeezed with a vise to fit into the tune, but fit it was made to do.
It sounds wrong because it wasn't written as a song but rather as a poem.