Sherry Chandler

I’ll be a featured reader at the Morrison Gallery Reading Series, Elizabethtown Community College, on Thursday, March 26, 7:00 - 8:00 pm.

I’d be pleased to see any of you in the audience.

Here follows a poem supposedly written by an Irish monk of the 8th or 9th century. You can find the Gaelic here and there around the web. I think this translation is by Robin Flower, though not everybody gives credit. I also think pangur bàn means white cat but I am giving you a photo of a black one because, frankly, I don’t usually think that far ahead.

Pangur Ban

I and Pangur Ban my cat,
Tis a like task we are at:
Hunting mice is his delight,
Hunting words I sit all night.

Better far than praise of men
Tis to sit with book and pen;
Pangur bears me no ill will,
He too plies his simple skill.

Tis a merry thing to see
At our tasks how glad are we,
When at home we sit and find
Entertainment to our mind.

Oftentimes a mouse will stray
In the hero Pangur’s way;
Oftentimes my keen thought set
Takes a meaning in its net.

‘Gainst the wall he sets his eye
Full and fierce and sharp and sly;
‘Gainst the wall of knowledge I
All my little wisdom try.

When a mouse darts from its den
O how glad is Pangur then!
O what gladness do I prove
When I solve the doubts I love!

So in peace our tasks we ply,
Pangur Ban, my cat, and I;
In our arts we find our bliss,
I have mine and he has his.

Practice every day has made
Pangur perfect in his trade;
I get wisdom day and night
Turning darkness into light.