BY AVELLINA BALESTRI

“A sudden glow of patriotism was kindled within me, and presented my king and country as my patron. ‘Well then,’ I exclaimed, ‘I will be a hero! and, confiding in Providence, I will brave every danger!'” – Lord Nelson, as a youth, following his mystical experience

***

“I will be a hero” 

Said the boy, with fever burning,

Like the orb before his glassy eyes,

Still scaled by youthful eagerness.

Spinning, swirling, radiant light,

A bouncing ball that defies shape…

Now, it forms a warrior weapon:

Michael’s sword unsheathed,

Jutting like an iceberg from the deep,

So cold, it is hot;

So hot, it is cold.

The boy will feel the blade.

It wounds him, and it warms him, 

And he shivers from its sting.

But this archangelic sphere

Binds the wound it wrought,

Like Raphael, healer of the blind,

And the sailor’s advocate.

“I will be a hero”

Said the boy, with churning stomach

And limbs turned to butter

Upon the salty, swaying deck

That one day will be slick with blood

Mixing with the ocean’s brine,

Breaking over wooden walls

That guard Britannia’s coasts.

The zeal for king and country 

Keeps him warm,

Though cloakless he may be,

For he has seen a thing

Beyond the mortal vale.

The ball is red and whirling,

Like the moon at the end of time

And the fleeting stars that will fall

Down, down, into the dark sea.

But this is not the day,

Not the night,

Though the emperor will glimpse

His own apocalypse.

“I will be a hero”

Said the boy, in Norfolk born,

Where his father kept his vicarage,

And the ancients built a shrine

To the fairest Star of the Sea

And the ice-cold, flaming eyes

With which Gabriel greeted her.

Here, too, the anchoress Julian

Penned her visions of ecstasy

And agony, at the brink of death,

A fever showing her revelations

Of Divine Love.

This is a green and pleasant land,

With lichened walls and lambs bleating

And the sounds of the sea

Breathing down its neck,

Like a monster, to her foes,

And a mother, to her children, 

Defending them through the flaring fire

And the stench of smoke.

“I will be a hero”

Said the boy, thinking upon Wolfe,

Stretched out in scarlet paint

Upon Abraham’s gory plains,

Like Christ, ripped from the rood,

The cruel crossroads 

Of earthly and heavenly things,

The waterwheel of the worlds,

With heaven emptying

And earth filling,

Then earth emptying

And heaven filling,

And the sinner and the saint in every man,

And the angels and demons in every man,

Warring until doomsday.

“I will be a hero”

Said the boy, destined to die,

Saving his island home

From the conqueror’s yoke,

Blind in the eye, cut off at the arm,

Half a man, and more than a man,

Infused on his darkest night

With prophetic glory

And the promise

Of a shattered spine,

Shot spraying amidst his medals,

Shining like stars upon his breast.

The radiant orb glowed

In his mind’s eye

And his face would glow 

As he spoke of it,

Just as his heart had glowed 

When first he saw it,

And his pen glowed 

In his one good hand

As he wrote his last prayer

“To the Great God whom I worship,”

Pleading for the salvation of his nation

And that no inhumanity would tarnish it,

And committing his own life

To the One who made him

And called him

To this end.

Kneeling,

His heart ached,

And his knees ached,

Upon the wood,

Rocking, once again, 

Beneath him,

For the last time.

“I will be a hero”

Said the boy, on Michaelmas born,

The autumnal festival

Of John Barleycorn cut down

And Satan cast into the fiery lake.

Yes, the feast of amber wheat,

Scythe-shorn,

And amber ale,

Bursting from the barrel,

As we watch the leaves turn 

From bright green to blood red

On the oaks of Old England,

Which built the masts of her ships

And formed the hearts of her men,

Who will do their duty

As their country expects.

Yes, this is Michael’s feast,

Whose fortress stands in Cornwall

Where news of Trafalgar’s victory

First reached shore and spread.

We remember it with strange customs:

Pace-egging and soul-caking

Amongst the ghosts of the slain,

And the tapping of the admiral,

Whose corpse was preserved

In a brandy barrel,

And tearing off strips from the flag

That snapped upon the Victory,

Red and white,

Body and blood,

Death and resurrection,

And shedding salt tears amidst the storm,

For the orb sears our eyes, too,

As it did those of the admiral,

And he became a sign

Of a greater reality.

And so the Triune Power

Came to Abraham, within his tent,

And so the rosy-fingered dawn

Calls forth the ocean’s dead.