Summary

“Casabianca” opens with the solitary image of how “The boy stood on the burning deck, / Whence all but he had fled” (1-2). Despite the violence around him, how “The flame that lite the battle’s wreck, / Shone round him o’er the dead,” the poem’s speaker notes a certain stoicism in the boy’s stance (3-4). In spite of the vast destruction and death around him and his youthful “childlike form,” he is a creature of “heroic blood” – “beautiful and bright he stood / As born to rule the storm” (5-8).

Subsequently, the speaker explains the reason for the boy’s stoicism. Though “The flames rolled on – he would not go, / Without his father’s word” (9-10). However, the speaker reveals the dramatic irony of the situation: while the son continues to call out to his father, inquiring “‘Say, father, say / If yet my...