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by Unknown

The following poem has become a National Lyric. It was first printed in the “Boston Daily Advertiser,” when the Frigate “Constitution” lay in the navy-yard at Charlestown. The department had resolved upon breaking her up; but she was preserved from this fate by the following verses, which ran through the newspapers with universal applause; and, according to “Benjamin’s American Monthly Magazine,” of January, 1837, it was printed in the form of hand-bills, and circulated in the city of Washington.

Y, tear her tatter’d 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!