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Secondary sourceBook1857

Santa Filomena

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · 1857

An 1857 poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow that gave Florence Nightingale her lasting nickname, 'A Lady with a Lamp'.

This poem about a lamp-carrying wartime nurse gave Nightingale her enduring public image and nickname.

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Source: Wikisource

About this source

What it is

This is a poem by the American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, written about a nurse tending wounded soldiers by lamplight in a wartime hospital. Though titled after a saint, the poem's imagery was widely understood to describe Florence Nightingale's work during the Crimean War.

Why it matters

The poem's line 'A lady with a lamp shall stand' became one of the most famous phrases associated with Nightingale, fixing her image in English-speaking culture on both sides of the Atlantic. It shows how quickly her wartime nursing became a symbol of selfless virtue, shaped by writers like Longfellow as much as by her own reports and actions.

Look closer

  • Why might Longfellow have chosen to disguise Nightingale behind the name of a saint rather than naming her directly?
  • What feelings does the poem want readers to have about the 'lady with the lamp'?
  • How might a poem like this shape public memory differently from an official report or statistic?

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