he
Nile. When the admiral was killed, he took
command of the fleet at the moment of defeat.
He blew up his ship, after the crew had been
saved, rather than surrender it. His
ten-year-old son refused to leave and perished
with his father.

CASABIANCA

FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS

The 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 child-like 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 be 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 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 that perished there,
Was that young, faithful heart.

The five numbers that follow are from the works
of the great English poet and mystic William
Blake (1757-1827). All except the first are
given in their entirety. No. 328 is made up of
three couplets taken from the loosely strung
together _Auguries of Innocence_. Nos. 329,
330, and 332 are from _Songs of Innocence_
(1789), where the last was printed as an