Coming by R.S. Thomas

To be crucified

again? To be made friends

with for his jeans and beard?

Gods are not put to death

 

any more. Their lot now

is with the ignored.

I think he still comes

stealthily as of old,

 

invisible as a mutation,

an echo of what the light

said, when nobody

attended; an impression

 

of eyes, quicker than

to be caught looking, but taken

on trust like flowers in the

dark country towards which we go.

 

by R. S. Thomas

from Experimenting with an Amen (1986)

‘Though we have parted, on my breast’ by Mikhail Lermontov

Though we have parted, on my breast

your likeness as of old I wear.

It brings my spirit joy and rest,

pale phantom of a happier year.

To other passions now I thrill,

yet cannot leave this love of mine.

A cast-down idol – god-like still,

a shrine abandoned, yet a shrine.

 

by Михаил Юрьевич Лермонтов (Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov)

(1837)

translated by Avril Pyman