Why do we only sing the first verse of the "Star Spangled Banner"?

[innerSpaceman]

I really like the second verse.


So I'll say they dropped the 3rd and 4th because they were gruesome and dismal and stretched beyond rhyme-singing possibility.




But the second verse is awesome and inspiring and, frankly, better at conveying what I thought as the historical essence of the piece than the part we all actually sing. I don't know why we dropped it, but I wish we hadn't.