The poem 'Pangur Ban' - an exposé

The poem 'Pangur Ban', which I discovered in the exhibition on The Book of Kells at Trinity College in Dublin, was written in Old Irish in the 9th century by an Irish monk who lived in 'Reichenau Abbey' (Kloster Reichenau) situated on Reichenau Island (Insel Reichenau) in Lake Constance (Bodensee), a delightful region in the south of Germany. In eight stanzas of four lines each, the speaker gives an impression of his work and that of his cat and although I do not have a cat, I can relate to him as a kindred spirit. He is sitting in his room, reading, thinking and writing and running the gamut of all the accompanying emotions – the interest and the passion aroused by dealing with great works, the effort and the perseverance it sometimes takes to continue and time and again creative enthusiasm and a sense of achievement.
The analogy he draws between his work and the doings of his cat makes for a light-hearted, humorous tone which - to use his own words - has the power of 'turning darkness into light'.