"Her deck, once red with heroes blood,
Where knelt the vanquished foe,
When winds were hurrying o’er the flood,
And waves were white below,
No more shall feel the victor’s tread,
or know the conquered knee;-
The harpies of the shore shall pluck,
The eagle of the sea!"
Where knelt the vanquished foe,
When winds were hurrying o’er the flood,
And waves were white below,
No more shall feel the victor’s tread,
or know the conquered knee;-
The harpies of the shore shall pluck,
The eagle of the sea!"
Oliver Wendell Holmes, from “Old Ironsides,” a poem written to galvanize the public to save the USS Constitution from the wrecker’s yard in 1830. Though the object of the poem is preservation, it seems also to imply the dangers of reducing a vessel that once held such power to a mere shoreside attraction.
