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Steve Whitaker
Features Writer
@stevewhitaker1.bsky.social
P.ublished 19th April 2025
arts

Poem Of The Week: St Julien And The Leper By R.S. Thomas (1913-2000)

St Julien and the Leper

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.


R.S. Thomas’ brief, unutterably beautiful poem stops the heart like strychnine. An article of faith in the realm of the faithless, ‘St Julien and the Leper’ is a fitting reminder, at Easter weekend, of the humility and self-sacrifice of others. Regardless of personal affiliation or belief, Thomas’ single verse points to a psychological void, a natural disinclination to attend to the sick for fear of contamination.

As St Julien immerses himself in the condition of suffering in a moment of pure undistilled love, his sense of identification is turned towards the sublime. Just as our art cannot ‘disinfect’ an access of empathy, the poet’s meaning transcends the apparatus of poetic form.


‘St Julien and the Leper’ is taken from Not That He Brought Flowers, published by Hart Davis (1968)

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