Lunchtime. 

I sat down with my Mum at the lunch table, I was a bit sad as I arrived as she was sitting alone at her table in a busy dining room, we chatted a bit and then Harry (as we later introduced ourselves) joined us, sitting down, very shaky to the point of being unable to actually get seated without help.  Harry told me he had lunch with Mum the day before.. I immediately began chatting with him and a little while later when he was waiting for his meal he recited almost unconsciously a verse from what seemed a song or a poem, I said ‘What is that Harry?‘ .. he said ‘I don’t know’, I said ‘It must be something in your memory’.. he said, ‘I just don’t know, must be something, I think it’s the last verse of something…’! 

I said to them both ‘I’ll google it’….and there it was from his recited verse, bang a famous poem.. (I though it rang a bell). I then said ‘Can I read it to you both?’

It’s a long very poignant poem about the war and the sadness around loss.. I read it to the best of my ability channelling James Earl Jones (in my mind) they both loved it and I said to Harry it’s actually the first verse you remember not the last, simultaneously the rather rambunctious table of men to the right (haha it’s a nursing home so not too out of hand) stopped razzing each other and were listening …I felt the pressure but read on… the poem is below.. maybe you know it? Its verses are from a time we don’t remember!  but while I sat in the dining room at Mum’s care home I was struck by the humility of not knowing this type of loss and the humbleness of being around those that do!

P.S Harry and I are now mates and I look forward to catching him when I visit Mum … ‘Casibianca’ in its full form is below.  ? it’s often when you least expect it that someone touches your soul and you are enriched in a way that stays with you for all time. 

Casabianca (1826)

Felicia Hemans

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 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 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 rolled on.

Upon his brow he felt their breath

And in his waving hair;

And look’d 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 wrapped the ship in splendour 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 which perished there,

Was that young faithful heart ❤️

 

The Battle of the Nile was a major naval battle fought between the British Royal Navy and the Navy of the French Republic at Aboukir Bay on the Mediterranean coast off the Nile Delta of Egypt from the 1st to the 3rd of August 1798. (Wikipedia)

Dates: 1 Aug 1798 – 2 Aug 1798

Location: Abu Qir Bay, Egypt