Question

In the third stanza, Holmes outlines what he thinks should be done with the ship. What is his idea?

Excerpt: Old Ironsides
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Ay, tear her tattered ensign1 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, 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 harpies2 of the shore shall pluck The eagle of the sea!

Answer 1

The narrator of the poem states that disrespecting the ship would be worse than seeing it lost at sea with its ensign nailed to the mast. He remarks that she should be buried in the ocean's depths because her resounding cannon fire made her known there. It would be preferable to cast her adrift at full sail and give her to the "god of storms" than to decommission this once-powerful ship in disgrace.