Genre:

Poetry, Drollery

Subjects:

Military Technology, Steamships, Aesthetics, Nationalism, Cultural Geography

Institutions mentioned:

Royal Navy

    Begins by insisting on the ugly appearance of 'Our ironclads' which are bereft of the features of the 'wooden walls of old' that amply showed that Britannia was 'ruler of the waves'. Agrees that the 'armour-plated man-of-war' is no match for the 'mail-clad man-at arms of old' because it lacks the 'grace of the medieval Knight'. Concludes by hoping that enemy's ironclads will be even uglier than the British ones.