In looking for songs to sing, I have recently listened more closely to Samuel Barber’s Hermit Songs than I ever had previously. Below are two of them that I particularly like, with the lyrics. First, here is “The Heavenly Banquet”:
Click here to view the embedded video.
I would like to have the men of Heaven in my own house;
with vats of good cheer laid out for them.
I would like to have the three Mary’s,
their fame is so great.
I would like people from every corner of Heaven.
I would like them to be cheerful in their drinking.
I would like to have Jesus sitting here among them.
I would like a great lake of beer for the King of Kings.
I would like to be watching Heaven’s family
Drinking it through all eternity.Attributed to St Brigid (10th century), translation by Seán Ó Faoláin
And one that I like even more is “The Monk and His Cat”:
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Pangur, white Pangur,
How happy we are
Alone together, Scholar and cat.
Each has his own work to do daily;
For you it is hunting, for me, study.
Your shining eye watches the wall;
My feeble eye is fixed on a book.
You rejoice when your claws entrap a mouse;
I rejoice when my mind fathoms a problem.
Pleased with his own art
Neither hinders the other;
Thus we live ever
Without tedium and envy.
Pangur, white Pangur,
How happy we are,
Alone together, Scholar and cat.(W. H. Auden’s translation of a poem by an anonymous Irish monk in the 8th or 9th century)
