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!
HOMEWARD BOUND.
The country caught the spirit, and such a cry of protest went up that the vandalism was stayed, and Old Ironsides was again repaired—hardly anything but her ornaments was now left of the original structure—and took several cruises, one of which was in carrying wheat to famine-stricken Ireland. Later she was used as a school-ship, but finally became worthless even for that, and in 1895 the question arose whether she should be broken up at the Brooklyn navy-yard or towed around to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and there laid up in a line with the Macedonian and a few other ancient hulks that were rotting quietly away in honorable age, and have now wholly disappeared. Sentiment dictated the latter course, and, with a crew aboard, prepared to take to their boats at a moment’s notice, the leaking and crazy old warrior, stately even yet, and sadly saluted by every fort and vessel she passed, crept around to her last berth at Kittery Point. She is the last and the most glorious representative of the “old navy.”