HEMANS, FELICIA DOROTHEA

ne Browne born Sept. 25, 1793, Liverpool died May 16, 1835, Dublin English poet who owed the immense popularity of her poems to a talent for treating Romantic themes-nature, the picturesque, childhood innocence, travels abroad, liberty, the heroic-with a fluency that sweeps the reader along, avoiding difficulty of thought or expression. Turning aside from life's darker aspects, she made Romanticism easy and respectable. Poems (1808), written when she was between 8 and 13, was the first of a series of 24 volumes of verse; from 1816 to 1834 one or more appeared almost every year. At 19 she married Capt. Alfred Hemans, but they separated seven years later; her prolific output helped to support her five children. She became a literary celebrity, admired by such famous older writers as William Wordsworth and Sir Walter Scott. Often diffuse and sentimental, she is at her best in her shorter pieces, notably "The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers," "Dirge," and the well-known "Casabianca" ("The boy stood on the burning deck. . . .").