Paganistan: Notes from the Secret Commonwealth
In Which One Midwest Man-in-Black Confers, Converses & Otherwise Hob-Nobs with his Fellow Hob-Men (& -Women) Concerning the Sundry Ways of the Famed but Ill-Starred Tribe of Witches.
Sing Holly, Sing Ivy
A few posts back, I wrote about the need for more Ivy carols to replace those that we've lost. Well, here's a new one. For reasons best known only to my poet's intuition, I've cast it in the form of an Elizabethan art song. I've tried to remain true both to botanical reality and to the genre's traditional (if playful) gender wars. There's a tune waiting out there somewhere, I'm sure of it.
Sing Holly, Sing Ivy
Of all the trees
that in winter be green,
sing Holly, sing Ivy,
if Holly be king,
then Ivy is queen.
Sing Holly, sing Ivy, green Ivy.
For Holly pricketh
with his thorn,
sing Holly, sing Ivy,
yet Ivy is smoothest
of all that are born.
Sing Holly, sing Ivy, green Ivy.
Though Holly groweth
ne'er so high,
sing Holly, sing Ivy,
yet Ivy reacheth
toward the sky.
Sing Holly, sing Ivy, green Ivy.
For Holly, he doth
bend and break,
sing Holly, sing Ivy,
yet Ivy knoweth
the greater strength.
Sing Holly, sing Ivy, green Ivy.
Of all the trees
that in winter be green,
sing Holly, sing Ivy,
if Holly be king,
then Ivy is queen.
Sing Holly, sing Ivy, green Ivy.
Minneapolis
December 2015
Seventh Day of Yule
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