For Ysemay Sterlyng, on Becoming a Vigilant of the Order of the Laurel

By THLaird Colyne Stewart, January AS 49 (2015)

From Eastern lands

Glad tidings flow around the knowne worlde spann’d

For Ysemay Sterlyng’s deft and graceful hands

Glad tidings flow around the knowne worlde spann’d

For Eastern royals

Will glad increase the standing of Their Laurels

With Ysemay Sterlyng, both kind and loyal

Will glad increase the standing of Their Laurels

With Eastern grace

She stands a Peer, forever in her place

Bright Ysemay Sterlyng of the smiling face

She stands a Peer, forever in her place

Notes on the Piece

You’ll have to bear with me on this one. Ysemay is being made a Laurel for her knowledge of 16^th century Germany (an era I know nothing about). So, I looked into what kind of poetic traditions were common in that time and found the Meistersingers, guilds of professional poets and singers who lived by dozens if not hundreds of rules (Die Kunstausdrücke der Meistersinger, a rule book written in 1887, is almost 300 pages long).

I could only find basic information about the Meistersingers in English, so my attempt at writing lyrics in their style may be WAY off. Further research will have to discover how close or far I got.

Meistersingers apparently wrote their verse in three strophes (or stanzas). I could not find out what kind of strophe they used (as there are many kinds), so I based mine on a piece of musical notation I found for Veilchenweise by Hans Folz. The lyrics were not included so I could not see the rhyming scheme, but it did allow me to see exactly how the strophe was constructed from its parts. I decided to go with an AAAA BBBB CCCC rhyming scheme.

Each strophe was divided into two stollen (confusingly also referred to as stanzas, and collectively known as an aufgesang). They were followed by an abesang (the after-song). It was apparently not uncommon for the stollen to be of different lengths. Melodically, the abesang would mirror the end melody of the aufgesang. I have included this mirroring by repeating the second stollen as the last line of the abesang.

So, deconstructed, here is the first strophe of my poem:

Aufesang

[Stollen 1] From Eastern lands

[Stollen 2] Glad tidings flow around the knowne worlde spann’d

Abesang

For Ysemay Sterlyng’s deft and graceful hands

Glad tidings flow around the knowne worlde spann’d

Technically, this should be written to music, but I know next to nothing about writing music.