Felicia Dorothea Hemans

Felicia Dorothea Hemans Poems

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.
...

Thy voice prevails - dear friend, my gentle friend!
This long-shut heart for thee shall be unsealed,
And though thy soft eye mournfully will bend
...

Bring flowers, young flowers, for the festal board,
To wreathe the cup ere the wine is pour'd;
Bring flowers! they are springing in wood and vale,
...

Heard ye the Gothic trumpet's blast?
The march of hosts as Alaric passed?
His steps have tracked that glorious clime,
...

5.

CALM on the bosom of thy God,
   Fair spirit, rest thee now!
E'en while with ours thy footsteps trod,
   His seal was on thy brow.
...

OH thou! whose soft, bewitching lyre,
Can lull the sting of pain to rest;
Oh thou! whose warbling notes inspire,
...

"Look now abroad--another race has fill'd
Those populous borders--wide the wood recedes,
And town shoots up, and fertile realms are till'd;
The land is full of harvests and green meads."--BRYANT
...

There were thick leaves above me and around,
And low sweet sighs like those of childhood's sleep,
Amidst their dimness, and a fitful sound
...

OH thou! the musing, wakeful pow'r,
That lov'st the silent, midnight hour,
Thy lonely vigils then to keep,
And banish far the angel, sleep,
...

They grew in beauty, side by side,
They fill'd one home with glee;
Their graves are sever'd, far and wide,
By mount, and stream, and sea.
...

A monarch on his death-bed lay -
Did censors waft perfume,
And soft lamps pour their silvery ray,
Thro' his proud chamber's gloom?
...

OH, queen of dreams! 'tis now the hour,
Thy fav'rite hour of silence and of sleep;
Come, bring thy wand, whose magic pow'r,
...

A sound of music, from amidst the hills,
Came suddenly, and died; a fitful sound
Of mirth, soon lost in wail.–Again it rose,
...

'Twas early day - and sunlight stream'd
Soft through a quiet room,
That hush'd, but not forsaken, seem'd -
Still, but with nought but gloom;
...

When will ye think of me, my friends?
When will ye think of me?
When the last red light, the farewell of day,
...

And is not love in vain,
Torture enough without a living tomb?
...

FAIR Gratitude! in strain sublime,
Swell high to heav'n thy tuneful zeal;
And, hailing this auspicious time,
Kneel, Adoration! kneel!
...

The woods? oh! solemn are the boundless woods
Of the great Western World, when day declines,
And louder sounds the roll of distant floods,
...

His very heart athirst
To gaze at nature in her green array,
Upon the ship's tall side he stands, possess'd
...

Whither, oh! whither wilt thou wing thy way?
What solemn region first upon thy sight
Shall break, unveiled for terror or delight?
...

Felicia Dorothea Hemans Biography

Felicia Hemans was an English poet. Ancestry 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. Early Life and Works Felicia Dorothea Browne was the fourth of six Browne children (three boys and three girls) to survive infancy. Of her two sisters, Elizabeth died about 1807 at the age of eighteen, and Harriett Mary Browne (1798–1858) married first the Revd T. Hughes, then the Revd W. Hicks Owen. Harriett collaborated musically with Felicia and later edited her complete works (7 vols. with memoir, 1839). Her eldest brother, Lt-Gen. Sir Thomas Henry Browne KCH (1787–1855), had a distinguished career in the army; her second brother, George Baxter CB, served in the Royal Welch Fusiliers 23rd foot, and became a magistrate at Kilkenny in 1830 and chief commissioner of police in Ireland in 1831; and her third brother, Claude Scott Browne (1795–1821), became deputy assistant commissary-general in Upper Canada. Felicia was born in Liverpool, 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. They made their home near Abergele and St. Asaph (Flintshire), and it is clear that she came to regard herself as Welsh by adoption, later referring to Wales as "Land of my childhood, my home and my dead". 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. The marriage took her away from Wales, to Daventry in Northamptonshire until 1814. During their first six years of marriage, Felicia gave birth to five sons, including Charles Isidore Hemans, and then the couple separated. Marriage had not, however, prevented her from continuing her literary career, with several volumes of poetry being published by the respected firm of John Murray in the period after 1816, beginning with "The Restoration of the works of art to Italy" (1816) and "Modern Greece" (1817). "Tales and historic scenes" was the collection which came out in 1819, the year of their separation. Later life From 1831 onwards, she lived in Dublin, where her younger brother had settled, and her poetic output continued. Her major collections, including The Forest Sanctuary (1825), Records of Woman and Songs of the Affections (1830) were immensely popular, especially with female readers. Her last books, sacred and profane, are the substantive Scenes and Hymns of Life and National Lyrics, and Songs for Music. She was by now a well-known literary figure, highly regarded by contemporaries such as Wordsworth, and with a popular following in the United States and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. When she died of dropsy, Wordsworth and Walter Savage Landor composed memorial verses in her honour. Legacy Felicia Hemans' works appeared in nineteen individual books during her lifetime. After her death in 1835 they were republished widely, usually as collections of individual lyrics and not the longer, annotated works and integrated series that made up her books. For surviving women poets, like Britons Caroline Norton and Elizabeth Letitia Landon , Americans Lydia Sigourney and Frances Harper, the French Amable Tastu and German Annette Von Droste Hulshoff, and others, she was a valued model, or (for Elizabeth Barrett Browning) a troubling predecessor; and for male poets including Tennyson and Longfellow, an influence less acknowledged. To many readers she offered a woman's voice confiding a woman's trials; to others a lyricism apparently consonant with Victorian chauvinism and sentimentality. Among the works she valued most were the unfinished "Superstition and Revelation" and the pamphlet "The Sceptic," which sought an Anglicanism more attuned to world religions and women's experiences. In her most successful book, "Records of Woman" (1828), she chronicles the lives of women, both famous and anonymous. Hemans' poem The Homes of England (1827) is the origin of the phrase stately home in English. The first line of the poem runs, "The stately Homes of England". Despite her illustrious admirers, her stature as a serious poet gradually declined, partly due to her success in the literary marketplace. Her poetry was considered morally exemplary, and was often assigned to schoolchildren; as a result, Hemans came to be seen a poet for children rather than taken seriously on the basis of her entire body of work. A jocular reference by Saki in The Toys of Peace suggests simultaneously that she was a household word and that Saki did not take her seriously. Schoolchildren in the U. S. were still being taught The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers in New England ("The breaking waves dashed high/On a stern and rock-bound coast...") in the middle of the 20th century. But by the 21st century, The Stately Homes of England refers to Noël Coward's parody, not to the once-famous poem it parodied, and Felicia Hemans was remembered popularly for her poem, "Casabianca". However, Hemans' critical reputation has been re-examined in recent years. Her work has resumed a role in standard anthologies and in classrooms and seminars and literary studies, especially in the U. S. It is likely that further poems will be familiar to new readers, such as "The Image in Lava," "Evening Prayer at a Girls' School," "I Dream of All Things Free," "Night-Blowing Flowers," "Properzia Rossi," "A Spirit's Return," "The Bride of the Greek Isle," "The Wife of Asdrubal," "The Widow of Crescentius," "The Last Song of Sappho," and "Corinne at the Capitol." Casabianca First published in August 1826 the, poem Casabianca by Felicia Hemans depicts Louis de Casabianca who perished in the Battle of the Nile. The poem was very popular from the 1850’s on and was memorized in elementary schools for literary practice. The poem depicts what happened on the ship the Orient as Commander Louis de Casabianca died due to refusing to flee his post. Other poetic figures such as Elizabeth Bishop and Samuel Butler allude to the poem in their own works. "Speak, father!' once again he cried, 'If I may yet be gone!" And but the booming shots replied, And fast the flames rolled on. 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. Martin Gardner and Michael R. Turner made modern day parodies that were much more upbeat and consisted of boys stuffing their faces with peanuts and breads. This contrasted sharply with the solemn image created in Casabianca as Hemans wrote it. England and Spain, or, Valor and Patriotism Her second book, England and Spain, or, Valor and Patriotism, was published in 1808 and was a narrative poem honoring her brother and his military service in the Peninsular War. The poem called for an end of the tyranny of Napoleon Bonaparte and for a long lasting peace after the war. The poem is very patriotic towards Great Britain as seen in Heman’s multiple references to “Albion” which is an older name for the isles of Great Britain. “ For this thy noble sons have spread alarms, And bade the zones resound with BRITAIN's arms!” It is seen throughout this poem that Felicia Hemans is alarmed with the thought of war but her overall pride of nationality overcome this fear. She saw all of the fighting as useless bloodshed and a waste of human life. “England and Spain” was used by her to spread her message across Europe, that the wars were senseless and that peace should resume.)

The Best Poem Of Felicia Dorothea Hemans

Casabianca

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.
Yet beautiful and bright he stood,
As born to rule the storm;
A creature of heroic blood,
A proud, though childlike form.

The flames roll'd on...he would not go
Without his father's word;
That father, faint in death below,
His voice no longer heard.

He call'd 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 roll'd 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 one 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 splendour wild,
They caught the flag on high,
And stream'd above the gallant child,
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 the sea.

With mast, and helm, and pennon fair,
That well had borne their part;
But the noblest thing which perished there
Was that young faithful heart.

Felicia Dorothea Hemans Comments

J A Gloss 24 January 2019

My dear father learned this poem at school in the 1920's and used to recite it, in part, to our family right up until he passed away, aged 92. I have not heard the full version until reading it on this site - and think it is a marvelous piece of work

1 0 Reply
Cynthia Clegg 28 June 2017

I have a book of collected poems of Felicia Hemans, published 1897 and beautifully decorated cloth hardback cover. How would I get it appraised?

0 2 Reply
Gowhar Khan 19 March 2017

I am highly inspired by the way you play with hands... Awesome work

0 1 Reply
Muhammad Sagir Hunter Soro 19 January 2016

Muhammad Sagir Hunter worked at F.M.C Azare Was (born In 1st June 1987) was M.D of Denawatrick comp in Nigeria from 29 May 2009 to present. Also He is a Member of (ATF) Almajiri tsangaya foundation. From December 2012 to present Muhammad sagir hunter Born in soro Districk, Ganjuwa Local Government Area of Bauchi State (then the part of Northern Region) , Muhammad Sagir Hunter attended Primary School in Soro Central Primary School from 1996 to 2000. Between He attended the Command day Secondary 33 artillery Brigade-Nigeria Army Shadawanka Barrak Bauchi, Bauchi state. Where he obtained Division one (Distinction) in the West African School Certificate Examination. He then attended the School of Computer and Techology at F.R Online Training and later received Diploma program in Computer from 2008 to 2011, Muhammad Sagir Abdullahi Worked as a Manager in Shukura Comp, Gloval link.

2 4 Reply
Sara Militello 01 November 2015

Well, of course! I responded to her poems as if she were a contemporary poet I had not heard of before. Now I wonder why she is not better known. Her poetry is sublime!

3 2 Reply

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