Who wrote 'Old Ironsides'?

Who wrote 'Old Ironsides'?

• A. Oliver Wendell Holmes
• B. Walt Whitman
• C. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• D. James Russell Lowell

Answer: (A)

Old Ironsides is a patriotic poem that Andrea Holmes wrote to celebrate the U.S. Navy ship Constitution and to urge that she not be broken up, using vivid sea imagery and a stirring, rhythmic voice that suits early American verse. Oliver Wendell Holmes, a physician-poet and part of the group known as the Fireside Poets, is the author behind this famous piece. The other poets listed—Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and James Russell Lowell—were indeed influential American writers, but their hallmark works differ in style and subject: Whitman is famous for expansive, free-verse explorations of democracy; Emerson for essays on individualism and transcendental ideas; Lowell for satirical or political verse. The poem’s blend of maritime admiration, moral appeal to preserve a national symbol, and Holmes’s distinctive concise, rhymed form makes his authorship the best fit.