“Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!,
\nlong has it waved on high,
\nand many an eye has danced to see
\nthat banner in the sky.
\nBeneath it rung the battle shout,
\nand burst the cannon’s roar;
\nthe meteor of the ocean air
\nshall sweep the clouds no more.
\nHer deck, once red with heroes blood,
\nwhere knelt the vanquished foe,
\nwhen winds were hurrying o’er the flood,
\nand waves were white below,
\nno more shall feel the victor’s tread,
\nor know the conquered knee,
\nthe harpies of the shore shall pluck
\nthe eagle of the sea!
\nOh, better that her shattered hulk
\nshould sink beneath the wave;
\nher thunders shook the mighty deep,
\nand there should be her grave,
\nnail to her mast her holy flag,
\nset every threadbare sail,
\nand give her to the god of storms,
\nthe lightning and the gale!”
\nOliver Wendell Holmes.
\nAt that time the Navy had proposed to send the U.S.S. Constitution
\nto the shipbreakers, consequently Holmes published his poem
\nand the rest is history. He was twenty-one at the time and
\neventually rose to serve on the United States Supreme Court.
\nIslander<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!, long has it waved on high, and many an eye has danced to see that banner in the sky. Beneath it rung the battle shout, and burst the cannon’s roar; the meteor of the ocean air shall sweep the clouds no more. Her deck, once red with heroes blood, … Continue reading ““Old Ironsides””<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-395","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/395\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2794,"href":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/395\/revisions\/2794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}