Respectfully dedicated to Horatio Nelson Oakes
"Casabianca" (1845)
A Descriptive Nautical Ballad.
Music Composed by Joseph W. Turner.

[Cover Portrait caption: (word legibility is problematic!)]

Young Casabianca, a boy about 15 years of age, son of the
admired of the Present, constrained at his post in the
Battle of the Nile, after the ship had taken fire and all
the guns had been abandoned, and peaceful in the capture
of the vessel, when the flames reopened the Magazines.

Boston: Keith's Music Publishing House, 67 & 69 Court St.
Lith. of E.W. Bouve Boston
Plate number: 306-3
[Source: 179/011@Levy]

1. 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 childlike form.

2. The flames rolled on,— he would not go
  Without his father’s word;
That father, faint to 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.

3. “Speak, father!” once again he creid,
  “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!

4. 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.

5. There came a burst of thunder sound—
  The boy— O, where was he?
Ask of the winds, that far around
  With fragments strowed the sea—
With mast, and helm, and pennon fair,
  That well had born their part,—
But noblest thing that perished there,
  Was the young, faithful heart.