Singing about Drinking Beer with Jesus

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”:

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”:

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)