Sail Away

Yesterday the U.S.S. Constitution sailed under its own power for the first time since 1997 and for only the second time in more than a century.  Commissioned in 1797, it's the world's oldest active naval ship.  Here it is in Boston Harbor yesterday.

If you haven't seen the Constitution it's well worth a visit if you're in the Boston area.  When you go aboard the ship make sure to go below and then imagine 450 men as well as livestock living there for months on end.

In 1830, the Constitution was scheduled for decommissioning and scrapping.  The ship was saved when a leading Bostonian, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr  (father of the famous early 20th century Supreme Court justice) read an article about it in the paper and was moved to write a poem that was first published in Boston and then republished by papers across America eventually leading to a reversal of the decision.

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,
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!

Oh, better that her shattered hulk
Should sink beneath the wave;
Her thunders shook the mighty deep,
And there should be her grave;
Nail to the mast her holy flag,
Set every threadbare sail,
And give her to the god of storms,
The lightning and the gale!