BY AVELLINA BALESTRI

“No farther seek his merits to disclose, or draw his frailties from their dread abode. There, they alike in trembling hope repose: The bosom of his Father and his God.”—Thomas Gray, “Elegy in a Country Churchyard”

***

We hear of Brave Wolfe

In heroic ballads,

And read of his conquest

In history books.

Yet we forget the youth,

Still searching for himself,

Lost to war and worm

And willfulness.

It is no less cutting

Due to the crush of time,

No less a loss

When I reach the last letter,

After reading dozens,

And find they are all done.

Of course, I know how it must end:

With the painting by West,

A mirror of the Pieta,

Without Christ or Mary.

It is meant to be glorious,

But leaves me gutted.

Is this truly all there is?

~

Wolfe often asked the same,

In his loftier moments.

He loved the philosophers,

Classical sages and stoics,

And like the Young Alexander,

Longed for his brief span

To be crowned with glory.

But I don’t love him for that

As much as for the little things

Sprinkled across his scribblings.

He thrived on his books

And packaged green tea.

He hated how his fingers froze

In winter’s chill,

And praised the bountiful garden,

Blossoming in spring.

He despised geometry,

Muddling his mind,

And long carriage rides,

Rattling his bones.

He kept fussing over his dogs,

One “Romp,” another “Flurry,”

And trying to place their puppies.

He exchanged herbal remedies

With his frequently fretting mother,

For he was more often than not

Under the weather.

~

He could be incorrigibly moody,

Complaining about everyone,

Overthinking everything.

One wonders if he enjoyed it.

He said French ladies were gluttonous,

And Scotch ladies were barbaric,

And he didn’t like parties

With English ladies either,

Too eager and amorous

And probably after his purse.

He said he just wanted to sit down

With girls who could converse with him

About his philosophy, and his poetry,

And most likely his dogs.

He questioned the existence

Of ghosts and gods

On the white cliffs of Dover,

Musing upon the jagged edge

And the long drop down to the sea.

But of course, he believed in God,

As was the enlightened creed:

The Clockmaker Deity,

Indifferent to the individual,

Determining the flowering of nature

And mankind’s destiny.

It seemed to haunt him,

This all-but-pagan God.

He was religious by nature,

If not so much in practice,

Always reaching for the ultimate

And desiring the absolute.

But he feared “enthusiasm”

Like some medieval plague,

No matter what form it took,

Be it Wesleyan revivals,

Or Catholic recusancy.

~

Once, a friend coaxed him

Into turning a blind eye

And allowing a Catholic

To don a red coat, as a recruit.

Wolfe agreed, with a caveat:

It was their duty to be vigorous

In befriending him,

So he might be brought around

To abandoning his faith,

Even if they had nothing better

To offer him.

Yes, Wolfe abided by the settlement,

The Church of the State

Established in England,

But it did not enamor him,

And he drank to it reluctantly.

He attended services

To be respectable,

But struggled to pray,

For why should God care

About him,

Or his hopes or fears

Or petty failings?

God, to him, was terrible as death,

His own, and that of others,

For this Clockmaker

Might simply burn up His clocks

When they ceased to tick.

~

When Wolfe’s brother passed,

He worried that the loss

Might grow less keen,

When every hour he should suffer

That the boy had pined for him,

Though he had not been there.

He feared the numbing of time,

Like The Little Flower

With her jam sandwiches,

Crusts wilting and turning pink,

As she marveled at the brevity of life

And her own family griefs.

But she still had her dreams

Of a Prince invading the Shadows

From the Realm of Light.

For Wolfe, it was all a pit of peril,

Even in his dearest dreaming,

Without a Cross planted in the chasm,

Shining like the Son.

Still, he kept meditating on the end,

And if there was anything after.

~

An Anglican bishop

And friend of the family

Died, after a long illness.

Wolfe said he shouldn’t be mourned,

For at least his suffering had ceased,

And if there was more to come,

Some justice incorruptible,

Some care that crafted order,

Surely the deceased was happy.

But Wolfe never made peace

With that gnawing uncertainty

As Therese did, through dark nights,

With her holocaust of love.

It just ate away at him,

And he sought to fill the heavenly holes

With hopes of earthly honors.

But even he did not believe

Such achievements would suffice.

He was too intelligent

To fall fully for his own deceits.

If the grave was invincible,

It would swallow worldly glories.

Time would take all,

And even memory, bright with fame,

Kept burning by a grateful nation,

Would someday be extinguished.

Not even zeal for king and country

Could assuage that horror.

~

Like a pagan, Wolfe could be brutal,

Declaring his willingness to massacre,

And leave naught but scorched earth,

And sow salt upon the soil.

He could be haughty and demeaning,

Quick of mind and tongue to wound,

And unwilling to forgive affronts.

He was far from a saint, and he knew it.

He said he even made a poor Stoic,

Failing to do what he should,

And doing that which he loathed.

He wondered if human nature

Was simply fractured,

From the lowest to the highest,

An accidental Pauline epiphany.

~

But he also showed another side,

With glimpses of generosity

That belied his harshness.

He once said that all men

Were, in essence, the same,

And so deserved compassion,

And should not grovel before kings

With excessive subservience.

He read poorly written messages

From his soldiers’ wives,

Asking him to intervene on their behalf,

And he usually tried to help.

He asked his mother to send this or that

To someone or other

Who was alone, or ill, or near their end.

He fretted over William Howe 

When he was starving himself

After his brother, George Augustus,

Was killed, in a terrifying instant,

And Wolfe pitied the poor man’s aunt

Who had loved George like a mother.

~

Though he brandished fire and sword,

Sometimes he showed chivalry,

Saying he would be no executioner

When ordered to shoot rebel wounded,

Bleeding upon Drumossie Moor,

And playing the part of a gentleman

Towards captive French gentlewomen

Caught in the crossfire of war,

And procuring a milk cow

For French farm children

Whose homes his troops had burned.

He had always been fond of children,

Though he would have none of his own.

For all his scathing insults,

He would soften his judgments

And measure his words

When confronted with individuals

Who impressed him,

Be they Highlanders

Or Colonials,

And they nicknamed him

“The Red-headed Corporal”

Because he dressed plainly

And wore no wig over tawny hair

As he walked along the lines,

And asked after their health.

He called them “Brother Soldiers,”

And such was his magic upon men,

They swore they would have braved

Fire and water to serve him.

~

The night before the battle,

He hosted his last supper,

And asked his young officers,

“How stands the glass around?”

Then he bid wine abound,

For their business was to die,

And be sent to the One who made them.

Yes…that mysterious One…

Would a bottle and kind landlady

Truly cure all,

Or even anything?

No, but for his soldiers,

He chose to pretend.

~

He praised merit and offered promotions,

Even on his last day.

A sergeant was shot through the lung

As the general walked by.

The man looked up and saw Wolfe

Bending down,

With azure eyes unflinching,

And felt Wolfe grasp his hand,

As he heard his words of comfort,

Promising him advancement,

If he fought to breathe,

Fought to live.

~

Soon, Wolfe himself would be stricken,

As his troops charged to victory,

And to the young aide who caught him,

He said, “My dear, don’t grieve for me;

I will be happy in a few moments.

Take care of yourself,

For I see you are wounded.”

I do wonder what happiness he sought:

To be content in subduing a city,

Or some hesitant, higher hope,

Clinging to him, despite his doubts,

And beyond his own expectations?

~

I imagine getting on well with Wolfe,

In the right circumstances.

I would have laughed at his jokes,

And he would have played it straight.

We could have sat down and conversed

About the evils of algebra,

And how we struggle to put on weight,

And exchanged herbal remedies,

Because we both have poor health,

Complete with icy hands,

But we are far too stubborn

To give in to it.

We are the type determined to command,

Come hell or high water.

We could have talked philosophy

And religion, and likely quarreled.

He did not put much trust in Papists,

Though he could make exceptions.

He probably would have joked

I was likely to poison his green tea.

~

I would have enjoyed discussing poems

Such as “Elegy in a Country Churchyard,”

The antidote to Alexander,

Alcohol, and annihilation,

With its quiet Christianity,

In which the meek inherit the earth,

Even when the paths of glory

Lead down into the grave.

“Better to write those lines,”

Said a wistful Wolfe,

“Than to triumph o’er Quebec.”

But Quebec he would have,

Smiling at the life’s blood

Soaking his shirt crimson.

His mother surely prayed for him,

As he asked of her before setting sail,

Since he struggled to do so himself.

I know I would have prayed, and cried,

And had trouble eating,

Feeling guilty, like he had felt,

When the pangs of loss lessened.

Strange, imagining all that,

About the hero of ballads,

Who soldiers wept over

At the hour of his death

And even forty years later,

Recalling, “He was straight as a reed…

…aye, straight as a reed…”

My God…and all-too-human.

~

In history, Wolfe has won

A victory…but what kind?

Is it not a tragedy, still,

This scandal of death,

And sacrifice for lesser goods?

Here he is, a sign of contradiction,

His statues replacing the saints

In the alcoves of Quebec,

And his panoramic portrait

Gracing museums

As a crucible of war,

A pieta in paint,

Without Christ or Mary.

Or maybe not…

Maybe Christ and Mary

Cannot be easily dismissed

From any scene.

~

On the night that followed

Wolfe’s triumphant demise,

Leaving the balladeers to compose

And his mother to mourn,

Montcalm, the French marquis,

His enemy brother,

Lay dying in defeat,

Grieving for his wife and children,

But said that nothing mattered

Except eternity.

And so he called a priest,

And took viaticum,

And was buried within a crater

In the Ursuline convent,

Carved out by an enemy shell.

Yes, this upon the feast of exultation,

When the Rood is raised, 

As Montcalm raised it

O’er his breastworks at Ticonderoga 

With the inscription:

“En signum!

En victor!

Deus hic,

Deus ipse triumphat.”

Behold God’s sign!

For only He hath triumphed here.

~

Who can say

Which won the greater victory

After their trial had passed,

And the strains of Wolfe’s Song

Bled into Victimae Paschali Laudes?

Perhaps it is no contest now,

Nor should we compare,

Nor should we judge,

For the exaltation

Draws us all.

~

Please God,

Let mercy conquer both.