High visibility vests and gear speeds have replaced the older bike version familiar to the latin scholar. These journey etched in memory are and can be patrols of the imagination to borrow from the scribe John Mc Gahern. By the way for those of you are leitrim exiles have a read of some of the fine descriptions of your native county in his novels.Some of you will remember the noise of an industrious mouse searching your humble satchel for his lunch on a soft Plain of Cully’s or would that be a hard crust over a galtee or calvita added attraction.There were no yogurts ,calculators or computers then……How did we survive? If you have mice as friends you must become familiar with the following masterpiece that I now share with having heard Seamus Heaney read it on Radio.
“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 knowledgeI
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.