In 1906 the Secretary of the Navy suggested that Old Ironsides be used as a practice target for the guns of the navy, but the newspapers in all parts of the country raised such a loud and such a general protest that the suggestion was never carried into effect and the proud old ship today lies in the Boston navy-yard "housed over." OLD IRONSIDES 1 Ay, tear her tattered ensign down! Beneath it rung the battle shout, The meteor of the ocean air Shall sweep the clouds no more! 2 Her deck, once red with heroes' blood, No more shall feel the victor's tread, 3 O better that her shattered hulk And give her to the god of storms, The lightning and the gale! -Oliver Wendell Holmes. Notice the striking figures of speech in The meteor of the ocean air, The harpies of the shore, and The eagle of the sea. Harpies here means plunderers. The last four lines present a particularly fine picture, which the reader should re-create in his imagination. THE BATTLE OF BLENHEIM It is Southey here gives us a fine piece of sarcasm. in fact a most severe criticism of war, although pretending to praise its glories. Many thousand men fell at the battle of Blenheim-but it was a "great victory!" Nobody knows just why they killed each other—but it was a "famous victory!" Women and children were slain-but it was a "famous victory!" Many thousand bodies lay rotting in the sun-but it was a "famous victory!" Nobody knows what good came of it-but it was a "famous victory!" The battle of Blenheim was a "very wicked thing," as most battles have been, but it was a "famous victory!" The sarcasm throughout the poem is cutting and terrible. The speakers in the poem are an old farmer named Kaspar, whose home is near Blenheim in Bavaria, and his two little grandchildren, one of whom brings in a human skull which he has found on the battlefield, and wants to know what it is. This skull serves as the text for the dialogue that follows-a dialogue on the horrors and wickedness of war as represented in the "famous victory" of Blenheim. The battle of Blenheim was indeed the most famous victory of England's most famous general, the Duke of Marlborough, "who never fought a battle that he did not win, and never besieged a place that he did not take." The battle was fought August 13, 1704, during the "War of the Spanish Succession," which lasted ten years and was caused by the jealousy of European monarchs. The common people knew little or nothing about the cause of it, and doubtless cared little or nothing. England, Germany, Holland, Prussia and other powers formed the "Grand Alliance" to keep France and Spain from being united under one monarch. The war that followed was "literally universal," as Schwill says, "and raged at one and the same time at all the exposed points of the French-Spanish possessions, that is, in the Spanish Netherlands, along the upper Rhine, in Italy, in Spain itself, on the sea, and in the colonies of North America." During the progress of the war the emperor of Germany died and was succeeded by his brother, Charles VI. Now this same Charles was the prince whom the Grand Alliance was trying to put on the throne of Spain. To have Germany and Spain under one monarch would be as bad as to have France and Spain under one monarch— so England and Holland thought, and this new jealousy made the Grand Alliance go to pieces. The peace of Utrecht, 1713, followed, by which the Spanish dominions were divided. Everybody managed to get a share of the booty, England's share being the French possessions in North America, namely, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, the Hudson Bay territory; together with the Spanish rock of Gibraltar, which gave her the command of the Mediterranean sea. To this day it has not been settled who was really entitled to the crown of Spain-but the battle of Blenheim was a "famous victory!" THE BATTLE OF BLENHEIM 1 It was a summer evening, Old Kaspar's work was done, His little grandchild Wilhelmine. 2 She saw her brother Peterkin Roll something large and round, Which he beside the rivulet, In playing there, had found; He came to ask what he had found That was so large, and smooth, and round. 3 Old Kaspar took it from the boy, Who stood expectant by; And then the old man shook his head, And, with a natural sigh, ""T is some poor fellow's skull," said he, "Who fell in the great victory. 4 "I find them in the garden, For there's many hereabout; And often when I go to plow, The plowshare turns them out; For many thousand men," said he, "Were slain in that great victory." 5 "Now tell us what 't was all about," Young Peterkin he cries; |