Hearing the dawn-wind stir

Candlemas with Luke, Eliot, Marot, Kipling and Brodsky

Last Sunday was Candlemas, the commemoration of the presentation of Jesus in the Temple, and the official end of Christmas. In Luke 2, the old priest Simeon breaks into a canticle — a song or poem or lyric speech, in language derived strongly from the Old Testament prophets — which for many Christians around the world is one of the most familiar of all …