St Julian and the Leper by R. S. Thomas

Though all ran from him, he did not

Run, but awaited

Him with his arms

Out, his ears stopped

To his bell, his alarmed

Crying. He lay down

With him there, sharing his sores’

Stench, the quarantine

Of his soul; contaminating

Himself with a kiss,

With the love that

Our science has disinfected.

 

by R. S. Thomas

from Not That He Brought Flowers (1968)

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12 February is St Julian’s feast day. He is the patron saint of: boatmen, carnival workers, childless people, circus workers, clowns, ferrymen, fiddlers, fiddle players, hospitallers, hotel-keepers, hunters, innkeepers, jugglers, knights, murderers (they have a patron saint?!), pilgrims, shepherds, to obtain lodging while traveling, travelers, wandering musicians, He is also known as Julian the Hospitaller.

My Country by Mikhail Lermontov

I love my country, but with a strange love –

stronger than reason!…

Neither the fame that blood can buy,

nor the calm pride of confidence,

nor the time-honoured gifts of ignorant days

can stir my soul with dreams of happiness.

But what I love – for some strange reason –

is the cold silence of her plains,

the swaying branches of her endless forests,

her rivers as wide-spreading as the sea;

galloping in a cart on country tracks

and gazing slowly deep into the dark,

seeing on either side, longing for sleep,

the poor sad villages’ bright windows.

I love the smoke of burning stubble,

the lines of carts crossing the steppe,

and in bright meadows, on a hill,

a pair of birches gleaming white.

I feel a pleasure few can share

seeing the barns piled high with grain,

the hut beneath a roof of thatch

with fretted shutters on the windows;

and on a dewy feast-day evening

I’ll gaze till late into the night

at whistling dancers, stamping feet,

and hear the drunken peasants talk.

 

by Михаил Юрьевич Лермонтов (Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov)

(1841)

translated by Peter France