Old Ironsides

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1830

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Poem Analysis

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Further Reading & Resources

Related Poems

“The Star-Spangled Banner” by Francis Scott Key (1814)

Although separated from Holmes’s poem by a generation, Key’s poem, written as he watched the heroic defense of Fort McHenry in September 1814, can be compared with “Old Ironsides” as expressions of national pride and military determination that both became elements of America’s rising new patriotic culture. Like Holmes, Key draws, ironically enough, on British prosody models to celebrate American military prowess.

“The Chambered Nautilus” by Oliver Wendell Holmes (1858)

Another popular poem by Holmes, this work is a nature parable. The poet sees the heroic efforts of the sea creature as it structures its shell-home against the vicissitudes of nature, the ocean, and time as symbol for every individual’s effort to prevail against tribulations. Much as “Old Ironsides” moves in the closing stanza to an aspirational meditation of mortality, this poem sees nature as teacher and the poet as thoughtful and sensitive student.

“The Building of the Ship” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1869)

Written a generation after Holmes’s ode to the warship, this poem, penned by a fellow Boston Brahmin, explores Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s metaphor of the power, elegance, and majesty of a well-crafted ship. Longfellow, writing in the quietus after the Civil War, has no taste for celebrating war itself. Rather, the poem offers an allegory that reads the well-crafted ship as a metaphor for building moral character.

Further Literary Resources

“Murder at Harvard: The Boston Brahmins” by The American Experience (PBS) (2003)

Holmes actually coined the term for the wealthy, university-educated writers, educators, journalists, and social activists who became America’s first generation of artisans. Although this episode of the much-honored PBS series centers on a murder trial that rocked the Brahmins’ culture, the episode probes the question of how a democracy could nevertheless foster an elitist culture. The online source includes an introductory text for the episode and a link to watch the episode, which is richly illustrated and captures the lavish aristocratic environment of the Brahmins.

“‘Old Ironsides’: How a Poem Saved America’s Favorite Warship” by Mac Caltrider (2023)

There are many such articles available online—this one is handsomely illustrated and makes clear the case that Holmes made to spare the warship. Inevitably Holmes’s poem is grounded in history. This article illuminates how a single poem written by a then-unknown twentysomething med student became an expression of American pop culture and the direct reason why the USS Constitution is today a much-visited tourist site, anchored at the Charlestown Navy Yard.

“Introduction,” Songs of Ourselves: The Uses of Poetry in America by Joan Shelley Rubin (2007)

This is a seminal study in how the early decades of America produced a generation of poets who were intent on creating a distinctly American voice. The “Introduction” (as well as two later chapters) defines the broad impact of the Fireside Poets, among them Holmes. Rubin devotes generous analysis to Holmes and to the impact of “Old Ironsides” and how the poem gave America’s its first great national poem.

Listen to the Poem

Bing Crosby reads “Old Ironsides” by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Of the dozens of readings available on YouTube, many of them classroom productions, the most effective reading is an underplayed 1946 production featuring Bing Crosby. His rich voice—he was a successful crooner—is pitch-perfect to Holmes’s dramatic prosody with its long rolling vowels and silky s’s. The version, recorded just a year after the end of World War II, captures Holmes’s sentimental patriotism and the heroic feeling of American pride defined by wars won when America seemed doomed. Crosby alternates some lines with backup readers who speak collectively, giving those lines the gravitas of a Greek chorus.