St Kevin had the gift of talking with beasts.
\nIt came naturally to him, a hermit,
\nLiving amongst them in his hollow tree
\nIn Glendalough, long vale of icy lakes.<\/p>\n
But just because he and they could converse
\nDoesn’t mean that everything went smoothly.
\n“Let me milk you,” he said, “so that I can
\nSubsist on a diet of doe’s milk and sage.”<\/p>\n
She sprang latterally up the heathered hill.
\n“Absolutely not; never. That’s invasive,
\nEmbarrassing, probably painful, strange.
\nFind something else to drink, or go back to your kind.”<\/p>\n
“Modesty forbids,” he said, “that I
\nShould apply the word to myself, yet ‘saintly,’
\nSurely, is the term that simple truth demands.
\nDidn’t you see how, when they’d gnawed bare the bones<\/p>\n
And longed for more–my human multitude–
\nI had only to pray; then juicy meat reclothed
\nEach rib that they had stripped to white? I am
\nlistened to; you’d be wise to do what I say.”<\/p>\n
But she was gone, her dappled flanks just shimmers
\nIn the fluttering lushness, the cool dampness,
\nThe extravagant, multitudinous greenness
\nOf the breezy glen with its two clear lakes.<\/p>\n
A red fox spoke up. “Large mammals are warned,”
\nSaid he, “to be in their dens or burrows
\nBy nightfall and to avoid all noises
\nThat might disturb or fright the smaller kind.<\/p>\n
“Also: no kindling fires or leaving picked bones
\nIn piles, no uncovered waste, odd chanting,
\nSpitting in the loughs, marching right though nests,
\nShouting, shooting, or walking on the grass.”<\/p>\n
St Kevin understood where this was headed.
\nIt wasn’t just his personal repute
\nHe had to worry about. There was also
\nHis ministry to pagans and sinners.<\/p>\n
He gathered the wary beasts in a ring.
\n\u201cI\u2019ll live humbly in my hollow tree, making
\nNo demands, restricting my human flock
\nTo the upper vale and ringing their buildings<\/p>\n
\u201cWith stone walls, as much to hem them in
\nAs your kind out. Let\u2019s just keep today amongst
\nOurselves, shall we? Let the story be that Kevin,
\nRenouncing the world, spoke the tongues of beasts<\/p>\n
In Glendalough, that broad, still vale, where leaves
\nOf every green tremble when the soft rain falls.”<\/p>\n
(See also:\u00a0the scholar and his dog<\/a>\u00a0;\u00a0for Gerard Manley Hopkins<\/a>; and\u00a0The Cliff-Top Monastery by A.B. Jackson<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" St Kevin had the gift of talking with beasts. It came naturally to him, a hermit, Living amongst them in his hollow tree In Glendalough, long vale of icy lakes. But just because he and they could converse Doesn’t mean that everything went smoothly. “Let me milk you,” he said, “so that I can Subsist […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-verse-and-worse"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18881"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18892,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18881\/revisions\/18892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}