Felicia Heman's paternal grandfather was George Browne of Passage, co. Cork, Ireland; her
maternal grandparents were Elizabeth Haydock Wagner (d. 1814) of Lancashire and
Benedict Paul Wagner (1718–1806), wine importer at 9 Wolstenholme Square, Liverpool.
Family legend gave the Wagners a Venetian origin; family heraldry an Austrian one. The
Wagners' country address was North Hall near Wigan; they sent two sons to Eton College. Of
three daughters only Felicity married; her husband George Browne joined his father-in-law's
business and succeeded him as Tuscan and imperial consul in Liverpool.
Casabianca
was the name of the captain of the French man-of-war, L'Orient. At the battle of
Aboukir, having first secured the safety of his crew, he blew up his ship, to prevent it
falling into the hands of the English. His little son, refusing to leave him, perished
with his father. Mrs. Hemans has made a ballad, Casabianca, on this subject,
modifying the incident. The French poets Lebrun and Chénier have also celebrated
the occurrence.
The poem commemorates an actual incident that occurred in 1798 during the Battle of
the Nile aboard the French ship Orient. The young son Giocante (his age is variously
given as ten, twelve and thirteen) of commander Louis de Casabianca remained at his
post and perished when the flames caused the magazine to explode.
Narrative
In Hemans' and other tellings of the story, young Casabianca refuses to desert his
post without orders from his father. (It is sometimes said, rather improbably, that he
heroically set fire to the magazine to prevent the ship's capture by the British.) It's said
that he was seen by English sailors on ships attacking from both sides but how any
other details of the incident are known beyond the bare fact of the boy's death, is not
clear. Hemans, not purporting to offer a history, but rather a poem inspired by the bare
facts, writes:
Yet beautiful and bright he stood,
As born to rule the storm;
A creature of heroic blood,
A proud though childlike form.
The flames rolled on;he would not go
Without his Father's word;
That father, faint in death below,
His voice no longer heard.
Hemans has him repeatedly, and heart-rendingly, calling to his father for instructions:
"'Say, Father, say/If yet my task is done;'" "'Speak, father!' once again he cried/'If I
may yet be gone!;'" and "shouted but once more aloud/ 'My father! must I stay?'"
Alas, there is, of course, no response.
She concludes by commending the performances of both ship and boy:
With shroud and mast and pennon fair,
That well had home their part,—
But the noblest thing that perished there
Was that young, faithful heart.
Casabianca
by: Felicia Dorothea Hemans (1793-1835)
HE boy stood on the burning deck
Whence all but him had fled;
The flame that lit the battle's wreck
Shone round him o'er the dead.
Yet beautiful and bright he stood,
As born to rule the storm;
A creature of heroic blood,
A proud, though childlike form.
The flames rolled on -- he would not go
Without his father's word;
That father, faint in death below,
His voice no longer heard.
He called aloud -- "Say, father, say,
If yet my task is done?"
He knew not that the chieftain lay
Unconscious of his son.
"Speak, father!" once again he cried,
"If I may yet be gone!"
And but the booming shots replied,
And fast the flames rolled on.
Upon his brow he felt their breath,
And in his waving hair,
And looked from that lone post of death
In still, yet brave despair.
And shouted but once more aloud,
"My father! must I stay?"
While o'er him fast, through sail and shroud,
The wreathing fires made way.
They wrapt the ship in splendor wild,
They caught the flag on high,
And streamed above the gallant ‫شجاع شهم‬child,
Like banners in the sky.
There came a burst of thunder sound-The boy -- oh! where was he?
Ask of the winds that far around
With fragments strewed‫ ملئ‬the sea!-With mast, and helm, and pennon (flag)fair
That well had borne their part-But the noblest thing that perished there
Was that young, faithful heart.