Birthday quote – 25th September

Felicia Hemans

Born 25th September 1793 in Liverpool
Died 16th May 1835 in Dublin

Felicia Dorothea Hemans was an English poet.

Felicia was born in Liverpool, Lancashire, a granddaughter of the Venetian consul in that city. Her father's business soon brought the family to Denbighshire in North Wales, where she spent her youth.

Her first poems, dedicated to the Prince of Wales, were published in Liverpool in 1808, when she was only fourteen, arousing the interest of no less a person than Percy Bysshe Shelley, who briefly corresponded with her. She quickly followed them up with "England and Spain" 1808 and "The domestic affections", published in 1812, the year of her marriage to Captain Alfred Hemans, an Irish army officer some years older than herself.

First published in August 1826 the poem Casabianca by Felicia Hemans depicts Captain Louis de Casabianca and his 12-year-old son, Giocante, who both perished aboard the ship Orient during the Battle of the Nile. The poem was very popular from the 1850s on and was memorized in elementary schools for literary practice.

The poem is sung in ballad form (abab) and consists of a boy asking his father whether he had fulfilled his duties, as the ship continues to burn after the magazine catches fire.

The boy stood on the burning deck Whence all but he had fled The flame that lit the battle's wreck Shone round him o'er the dead.

Felicia Hemans

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