"Minstrelsy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Brecon, and printed the 'Interlude of the King, the Justice, the Bishop, and the Husbandman,' and got an old acquaintance of mine to play it with me, and help me to sell the books. I likewise busied myself in getting subscribers to a book of songs called the 'Garden of Minstrelsy.' It was printed at Trefecca. The expense attending the printing amounted to fifty-two pounds, but I was fortunate enough to dispose of two thousand copies. I subsequently composed an interlude called 'Pleasure and ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... looked upon them with disfavor, as the enemies of sobriety and the promoters of revelry and mirth. In the sixteenth century they lost all credit and were classed, in penal enactments, with "rogues and vagabonds." One reason of the decline of minstrelsy was the introduction of printing and the advance of learning: that which might afford amusement and pleasure when sung to the harp, lost its point and spirit when read in retirement from the printed ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... blithe minstrelsy; In willow bough or alder bush Birds sing, o'er golden filigree Of pebbles 'neath the flood's ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... shall relate, In high-born words, the worth of many a knight From tawny Spain lost in the world's debate. How you delight, my lords, I know not, I; But, I protest, I love to hear him lie, And I will use him for my minstrelsy. ...
— Love's Labour's Lost • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... gun down for an instant's aim, and then unerringly hit the mark; and then, when some unwary youth fired his piece into the ground at half-cock, such infinite guffawing and delight, such rolling over and over on the grass, such dances of ecstasy, as made the "Ethiopian minstrelsy" of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... Robert, having taken upon himself the state and consequence of sovereignty, determined on encouraging the high spirits and excited joyousness of his gallant followers by all the amusements of chivalry which his confined and precarious situation permitted, and seldom was it that the dance and minstrelsy did not echo blithely in the royal suite for many hours of the evening, even when the day had brought with it anxiety and fatigue, and even intervals of despondency. There were many noble dames and some few youthful maidens in King Robert's court, animated by the ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... there!—was rolled into a corner of the tent, and the crew to whom the awning belonged began to settle themselves to rest; while those who owned the other encampment marched forth, with King Cole at their head. Leaning with no light weight upon his guest's arm, the lover of ancient minstrelsy poured into the youth's ear a strain of eulogy, rather eloquent than coherent, upon the scene they ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... his soldiery. He kept them constantly to the exercise of arms, making them adroit in the use of their weapons and management of their steeds, and prompt for the field at a moment's notice. He permitted no sound of lute or harp or song or other loose minstrelsy to be heard in his fortress, debauching the ear and softening the valor of the soldier; no other music was allowed but the wholesome rolling of the drum and braying of the trumpet, and such like spirit-stirring instruments as fill the mind with thoughts ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... word "sweep." I believe it was on a brass-plate. For a moment, I wondered what it meant; and then I realized, with a great gratitude, that London had not changed so much, after all, since the days of Charles Lamb. As I emerged into a broader thoroughfare, my ears were smitten with the sound of minstrelsy. It is true that the tune was changed. It was unmistakably rag-time. Yet, there was the old piano-organ, and in a broad circle of spectators, suspended awhile from their various wayfaring, a young man in tennis flannels was performing a spirited Apache dance with a quite comely ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... literary fame Parentage of Scott Birth and childhood Schooling and reading Becomes an advocate His friends and pleasures Personal peculiarities Writing of poetry; first publication Marriage and settlement "Scottish Minstrelsy" "Lay of the Last Minstrel;" Ashestiel rented The Edinburgh Review: Jeffrey, Brougham, Smith The Ballantynes "Marmion" Jeffrey as a critic Quarrels of author and publishers; Quarterly Review Scott's poetry Duration of poetic fame Clerk of Sessions; ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... feet of the Madonna and playing on musical instruments, are most lovely and appropriate accessories, for the choral angels are always around her in heaven, and on earth she is the especial patroness of music and minstrelsy.[1] Her delegate Cecilia patronized sacred music; but all music and musicians, all minstrels, and all who plied the "gaye science," were under the protection of Mary. When the angels are singing from their music books, and others are accompanying them ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... tender by decay, the splash of startled fish in the shadows, commingled and blended to the accompaniment of that subdued aerial buzz by which Nature manifests the more secret of her functions and art—that ineffable minstrelsy to which her silent battalions keep step. Preoccupation, the whirl of my own temperate thoughts, scared silence, while as soon as the mental machine was stilled, the very trees became vocal. Thus have I caught fleet silences as they passed ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... Existence—and he will be beautiful When all the living world that sees him now Shall roll unconscious dust around the sun. Quelling from age to age the vital throb In human hearts, Death shall not subjugate The pulse that swells in his stupendous breast, Or interdict his minstrelsy to sound In thund'ring concert with the quiring winds; But long as Man to parent Nature owns Instinctive homage, and in times beyond The power of thought to reach, bard after bard Shall sing thy glory, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 493, June 11, 1831 • Various
... baying of a pack of hounds in full cry, and when the crags caught the sound and tossed it from mountain to mountain, when more delicate echoes on a higher key rang out from the deep ravines, there was a wonderful exhilaration in this sylvan minstrelsy. The young fellow looked wistful as he heard it, then ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... sonorous, silver swells The air was billowed like the sea; And listening ears were listening shells That caught the Sabbath minstrelsy, And sang it with the ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland
... herself for a man. In the older form of the tale Tannhaeuser lived goodness knows how long with Venus; then he forsook her, and she vowed to take vengeance on him. He returned to his friends, and entered for a competition in minstrelsy. While in the middle of his song, which would have gained him the prize, Venus visited him with sudden madness, and throwing away all cant about pure platonic love, he chanted the praise of foul ...
— Wagner • John F. Runciman
... music flourish!" So he said and died. Hark! ere he's gone the minstrelsy begins: The symphonies ascend, a swelling tide, Melodious thunders fill the welkin wide— The grand old lawyers, ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... ever a luckless youth, would have gone home empty-handed, but that one of his men found, entangled in the poles of the weir, a coracle, and a fair child in it. This was none other than he who was to be the father of Cymry minstrelsy, and whom then and there his rescuers named Taliesin, which means Radiant Brow. His mother, Ceridwen, seeking to be rid of her infant, but loath to have the child's blood on her head, had launched him in this sea proof cradle, to take the chance of wind and wave. The spot where ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine
... pine away at night. I wake, uncared for, in the morning light; And, hour by hour, I marvel that for me The wandering wind should make its minstrelsy So sweet and calm. I marvel that the sun, So round and red, with all his hair undone, Should smile at me and yet begrudge me still The sight of thee that art ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay
... saint too, oft would he Mellow old Time with minstrelsy,— But such as gave no scandal; Than his was never harp more famed; For Dunstan was the blacksmith ...
— The True Legend of St. Dunstan and the Devil • Edward G. Flight
... was melted at Tristram's minstrelsy, and he said: "That is wonderful harping. Now ask what thou wilt of me, and it shall be thine, whatever it ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle
... and fly, Serve us for our minstrelsy; Grace said, we dance a while, And so the time beguile; And if the moon doth hide her head, The glow-worm lights us ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... one lute is lonely on the hills at night, then one soul calleth to his brother souls—the notes of Shimono Kani's dirge which have not been caught among the worlds—and he knoweth not to whom he calls or why, but knoweth only that minstrelsy is his only cry and sendeth it out into ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... broken. In the shallow water of the ford down at the river splashed a horse's hoofs and she heard a voice singing in the weird falsetto of mountain minstrelsy an old ballade which, like much else of the life there, was a heritage from ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... of the major deities of Grecian mythology. He was regarded, among other things, as the god of song or minstrelsy, and also as the god of prophetic inspiration. The most celebrated oracle of Apollo ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... held sacred to him, and, from his Saxon name, Woden, was called Woden's day, whence the English word "Wednesday" has been derived. It was customary for the people to assemble at his shrine on festive occasions, to hear the songs of the scalds, who were rewarded for their minstrelsy by the gift of golden bracelets or armlets, which curled up at the ends ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... themselves, and he took care to dress to advantage the rudeness and plainness of his originals. Perhaps we should not blame him. Sir Walter Scott did the same with better tact and skill in his Border minstrelsy, and how many distinguished editors are there, who have tamed and smoothed down the natural wildness and irregularity of Blake? But it is more important to observe that when Percy's reliques came to have ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... responsive voices of the night I join your minstrelsy, And call across the fading silver light As something calls to me; I may not all your meaning understand, But I have touched your ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... on the Gym steps, their dignified song rudely shattered by this rollicking saenger-fest, came a storm of protests; to the unbounded delight of the alumni, watching the scene with interest, shouts, jeers, whistles, and cat-calls greeted Hicks' minstrelsy: ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... did not heed the many eyes upon her beauty turned; One vision still oppressed her soul, one grief within her burned. The tones of holy minstrelsy, the solemn anthem strain, They were like voices in ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 457 - Volume 18, New Series, October 2, 1852 • Various
... the sea; the prayer of man and woman, the praise of lisping tongues, the hum of insect joy upon the air, the sheep-bell tinkling in the distance, the wild bird's carol, and the lowing kine, the mute minstrelsy of rising dews, and that stilly scarce-heard universal melody of wakeful plants and trees, hastening to turn their spring-buds to the light—this was the anthem he, the Lord of Day, now listened to—this was the song his influences had raised ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... summer has come at my window with its sighs and murmurs; and the bees are plying their minstrelsy at the court of the ...
— Gitanjali • Rabindranath Tagore
... a citerne was heard in the street below her window,—nothing new in these piping times of love and minstrelsy; but so sensitive was the ear now become to exterior impressions, that she started, as though expecting a salutation from the midnight rambler. Her anticipations were in some measure realised, the minstrel pausing beneath her lattice. A wooden balcony projected from it, concealing the musician. ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... to be of no importance that Jubal invented rude instruments of music, calling them harp and organ; but they were the introduction of all the world's minstrelsy; and as you hear the vibration of a stringed instrument, even after the fingers have been taken away from it, so all music now of lute and drum and cornet is only the long-continued strains of Jubal's harp and Jubal's organ. It seemed to be ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... of this there's a price— 'Tis the price of minstrelsy— You will never have of the things you play, Sad singer of poetry, And throughout your life you will go for aye, Heart-hungry and silently!" I heard a voice from the far away Softly say this ...
— The Rose-Jar • Thomas S. (Thomas Samuel) Jones
... things of earth— That both are not of heavenly birth? While gathered blossoms fade away, The Poet's thoughts for ever stay— E'en as the rose's perfumed breath Survives the faded flow'ret's death. No pleasure human hand can give Is lasting—all things briefly live. But sounds which flow from Minstrelsy Vibrate through all eternity! Then welcome! welcome! one and all, To this, our Nation's Festival. Come rich—come poor: come old and young And join our Feast of Art ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... the solstice of the year, When the sun apace must turn, The seven bright angels 'gan to hear Heaven's twin gates outward yearn: Forth with its light and minstrelsy A lordly troop came speeding by, And joyed to see each cresset ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith
... Mills, wife of the Hon. Thomas Mills, M.P., was born at Stoke Newington, Eng., 1805. She was one of the brief voices that sing one song and die. This hymn was the only note of her minstrelsy, and it has outlived her by more than three-quarters of a century. She wrote it about three weeks before her decease in Finsbury Place, London, April 21, 1839, ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... Llew Llaw Gyffes returned to his home. And the day they spent in discourse, and minstrelsy, and feasting. And at night they went to rest, and he spoke to Blodeuwedd once, and he spoke to her a second time. But, for all this, he could not get from her one word. "What aileth thee," said he, "art thou well?" "I was thinking," said she, "of ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 3 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... I was dead?" laughs the new god Pan (Laughs till his faun-cheeks quiver), "I'm still at my work, on a new-fangled plan. Scare is my business; I think I succeed, When the Mob at my minstrelsy shakes like a reed, And I mock, as ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, Sep. 24, 1892 • Various
... Baronessa di Carini, and the so-called Caso di Sciacca, may still be heard upon the lips of the people. But these exceptions are insignificant in comparison with the vast mass of songs which deal with love; and I cannot find that Tuscany, where the language of this minstrelsy is purest, and where the artistic instincts of the race are strongest, has anything at all approaching to our ballads.[21] Though the Tuscan contadini are always singing, it rarely ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... whom I had appointed corporal, will soon be reduced to the ranks; the animal is spoiled by sheer drink. Having been drunk every day in Khartoum, and now being separated from his liquor, he is plunged into a black melancholy. He sits upon the luggage like a sick rook, doing minstrelsy, playing the rababa (guitar), and smoking the whole day, unless asleep, which is half that time: he is sighing after the merissa (beer) pots of Egypt. This man is an illustration of missionary success. He was brought ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... poor Edwin was no vulgar boy; Deep thought oft seemed to fix his infant eye. Dainties he heeded not, nor gaude, nor toy, Save one short pipe of rudest minstrelsy. Silent when glad; affectionate, though shy; And now his look was most demurely sad, And now he laughed aloud, yet none knew why. The neighbours stared and sighed, yet blessed the lad: Some deemed him wondrous wise, ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... had been singing or playing banjos or guitars or even upright pianos. For, it must be explained, there were many in that aquatic crowd who were there to be heard as well as seen, and this gave the affair its pathos. Not that negro minstrelsy as the English have interpreted the sole American contribution to histrionic art, is in itself pathetic, except as it is so lamentably far from the original; but that any obvious labor which adds to our gayety is sorrowful; ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... time. It is a great stride. It is a sign—is it not?—of new vigor when the extremities are made active, when currents of warm life run into the hands and the feet. I ask not for the great, the remote, the romantic; what is doing in Italy or Arabia; what is Greek art, or Provencal minstrelsy; I embrace the common, I explore and sit at the feet of the familiar, the low. Give me insight into to-day, and you may have the antique and future worlds. What would we really know the meaning of? The meal in the firkin; the milk in the pan; the ballad in the street; the news of the boat; the ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... suppose—big, burly fellows in greatcoats and top-boots, mightily flushed with liquor when they arrived, and, before they left, inimitably drunk. They stayed long in the kitchen with Burchell, drinking, shouting, singing, and keeping it up; and the sound of their merry minstrelsy kept me a kind of company. The night fell, and the shine of the fire brightened and blinked on the panelled wall. Our illuminated windows must have been visible not only from the back lane of which Fenn had spoken, but from the court ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... times when Ethiopian minstrelsy can amuse, if it does not charm, a weary soul,—and such a vacant hour there was on this same Friday evening. The "opera-house" was spacious and admirably ventilated. As I was listening to the merriment of the sooty buffoons, I happened to cast my eyes up to the ceiling, and through an open semicircular ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... factory smoke, dear no! There's the rivers, with tropical plants a-shading the banks, O my! There they goes up an' down in their boats, devil-may-care, a-strumming on the banjo,'—he imitated such action,—'and a-singing their nigger minstrelsy with light 'earts. Why? 'Cause they ain't got no work to get up to at 'arf-past five next morning. Their time's their own! That's the condition of an unexploited country, ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... peoples by whom the outward world was seen and felt as something beautiful.... By the year 1200, at the height of the Middle Ages, a genuine hearty enjoyment of the external world was again in existence, and found lively expression in the minstrelsy of different nations, which gives evidence of the sympathy felt with all the simple phenomena of Nature—spring with its flowers, the green fields and the woods. But these pictures are ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... again the same refrain Upon the selfsame key, Till airs elate, reverberate, Heaven's sweetest minstrelsy. ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... nor the sound of many voices in hymeneal song, such as the bride's girl-mates are wont to sing at eventide with merry minstrelsy: but lo, she had longing for things otherwhere, even as many before and after. For a tribe there is most foolish among men, of such as scorn the things of home, and gaze on things that are afar off, and chase a cheating prey with hopes that shall ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar
... they come, group after group, until the Stage, even of Old Drury, can hold no more, and there is scarcely room for them all to move, much less to indulge in any "kicking up ahind and afore," as was the wont of the Ancient JOSEPH, whose fame is hymned in Nigger Minstrelsy. A most brilliant scene, never to be forgotten!—that is, until next Pantomime Season, when Sir DRURIOLANUS will, in all probability, show us something equally magnificent, and as perfect in design ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 7, 1893 • Various
... like a seraph's sigh Breath'd to ethereal minstrelsy, And well ye'll deem what a sigh must be From the tearless ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 334 Saturday, October 4, 1828 • Various
... upon the ground, A something shining in the dark, And knew the Glow-worm by his spark; So, stooping down from hawthorn top, He thought to put him in his crop. The Worm, aware of his intent, Harangued him thus, right eloquent:— "Did you admire my lamp," quoth he, "As much as I your minstrelsy, You would abhor to do me wrong, As much as I to spoil your song; For 'twas the self-same power divine Taught you to sing and me to shine; That you with music, I with light, Might beautify and cheer the night." The songster heard his short oration, And, warbling out his approbation, ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... to the exhibition of short petticoats and long-legged boots, and to the holding of conventions and speech-making in concert rooms, the people were disposed to be amused by them, as they are by the wit of the clown in the circus, or the performances of Punch and Judy on fair days, or the minstrelsy of gentlemen with blackened faces, on banjos, the tambourine, and bones. But the joke is becoming stale. People are getting cloyed with these performances, and are looking for some healthier and more intellectual amusement. The ludicrous is wearing away, and disgust is taking ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... whole Minster was pervaded by a faint mysterious light, which was every instant growing brighter and clearer. And as the light increased the music grew louder and sweeter, and he knew that it was within the sacred walls. But it was no mortal minstrelsy. ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... troubadour in the kingdom of Arthur, who, strolling through the land with only his minstrelsy to win him a way, found in every baron's hall and cotter's hut a ready welcome. And while the boar's head sputtered on the spit, or the ale sparkled in the shining tankards, he told such tales of joust and journey, ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... joyous folk Of gifts and minstrelsy; Yet I, O lowly-hearted One, Crave but Thy company. On lonesome road, beset with dread, My questing lies afar. I have no light, save in the east ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... unmarred by vice! How rarely the taste is offended or the appetite starved, while every meal, be it ever so simple, yields enjoyment to the palate! The ear is regaled with the perpetual music of wind and ocean and feathered minstrelsy, of childhood's voice and the sweet converse of friends. So, too, Nature is a great laboratory of delicate odors: the salt breath of the sea is like wine to the sense; the summer air is freighted with delights, and every tree and flower ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... have sat for the portrait of Charles the Martyr-King, by Vandyck, in Windsor. He was a convinced and earnest supporter of the claims of Carlos Septimo, whom he regarded as a cousin, and a sort of modern counterpart of the young Chevalier, the "darling Charlie" of Jacobite minstrelsy. He received us with the hospitality of his nation, and we had a long chat as we paced the deck briskly, the Count discussing the prospects of the rising, and then verging off into gay anecdotes of his military ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... donzela and free, To clip nor to kiss had she Talent, nor for minstrelsy Was she fain; Mistress never would be, Nor master have; but her fee She vowed to ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... cultivation: they became in time vulgar mountebanks and jugglers, and in the reign of Elizabeth were suppressed as rogues and vagabonds. Banished from the highways they betook themselves to alehouses—followed the trade of pipers and fiddlers—and minstrelsy was no longer known ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 551, June 9, 1832 • Various
... till then revered, the working of evil demons, yet this transitional conception was soon outgrown. By the year 1200, at the height of the Middle Ages, a genuine, hearty enjoyment of the external world was again in existence, and found lively expres- sion in the minstrelsy of different nations, which gives evidence of the sympathy felt with all the simple phenomena of nature —spring with its flowers, the green fields and the woods. But these pictures are all foreground without perspective. Even the crusaders, who travelled so far and saw so much, ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... trimming the sails, and directing the vessel's course. But the decks of its companion were crowded with human shapes: the captain, and mate, and sailor, and cabin-boy, all seemed there; and from them the sound of mirth and minstrelsy echoed over land and water. The coast which they skirted along was one of extreme danger; and the reapers shouted to warn them to beware of sandbank and rock; but of this friendly counsel no notice ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... Bedivere, likewise Sir Key and the most part of the Table Round. The two queens also, Queen Guinevere and the Queen of Orkney, Sir Gareth's mother, came with the king. So there was a great array both within and without the castle, with all manner of feasting and minstrelsy. ...
— The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights • James Knowles
... see, The pearl of minstrelsy, A bud of blushing beauty; For whom proud nobles sigh, And with each other vie To do her menial's duty. ALL. To do her ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... Healest thy wandering and distempered child Thou pourest on him thy soft influences, Thy sunny hues, fair forms, and breathing sweets, Thy melodies of woods, and winds, and waters, Till he relent, and can no more endure To be a jarring and a dissonant thing Amidst this general dance and minstrelsy." ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... into song round a bonfire as naturally as birds after a shower of rain, and for those who see in such a fire no mere holocaust of dead twigs, but the Red Flower of the Jungle, the symbol and spirit of wild life, this spontaneous minstrelsy has a charm peculiarly its own. A charm of the simplest, certainly; for at camp-fires the banjo reigns supreme; and the aptest songs are those that 'rip your very heartstrings out' and offer fine facilities for effervescing ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... been firmly established. To the Jane Austen volumes succeeded other numbers of the so-called "Cranford" series, to which, in 1894, Mr. Thomson had already added, under the title of Coridon's Song and other Verses, a fresh ingathering of old-time minstrelsy from the pages of the English Illustrated. Many of the drawings for these, though of necessity reduced for publication in book form, are in his most delightful and winning manner,—notably perhaps (if one must choose!) ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... preternaturalism of such ballads as Buerger's which first led Scott to test his own powers, his genius soon turned to more appropriate and natural subjects. Ever since his earliest college days he had been collecting, in those excursions of his into Liddesdale and elsewhere, materials for a book on The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border; and the publication of this work, in January, 1802 (in two volumes at first), was his first great literary success. The whole edition of eight hundred copies was sold within the year, while the skill and care which Scott had devoted to ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... sincere, for he inserted the poem in the "English Minstrelsy." It may now be found in these volumes, Vol. I. p. 230, where, in consequence of the recollection of Sir Walter, and as illustrative of manners now ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... bestows his gold, Whereby his needy neighbour may be fed. No wealth of holiness my heart doth hold, No store have I to buy my brothers bread: So here I humbly dedicate to Thee The rolling trochee and iambus swift; Thou wilt approve my simple minstrelsy, Thine ear will listen to Thy servant's gift. The rich man's halls are nobly furnished; Therein no nook or corner empty seems; Here stands the brazen laver burnished, And there the golden goblet brightly gleams; Hard by some crock of clumsy earthen ...
— The Hymns of Prudentius • Aurelius Clemens Prudentius
... always stop short of a certain point,—the point where wit degenerates into mockery, and liberty into license: nature is never put to shame, and will commonly bear much more. Especially to the American sense did their humorous and comic strokes, their negro-minstrelsy and attempts at Yankee comedy, seem in a minor key. There was not enough irreverence and slang and coarse ribaldry, in the whole evening's entertainment, to have seasoned one line of some of our most popular comic poetry. But the music, and the ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... Edwin was no vulgar boy. Deep thought oft seemed to fix his infant eye. Dainties he heeded not, nor gaud, nor toy, Save one short pipe of rudest minstrelsy; Silent when glad; affectionate, though shy; And now his look was most demurely sad; And now he laughed aloud, yet none knew why. The neighbours stared and sighed, yet blessed the lad; Some deemed him wondrous wise, and some ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... part of Italy, and Spain as far as the Ebro. As Emperor of the West he bore the title Caesar Augustus. He established churches and monasteries, and encouraged arts and learning. He figures largely in mediaeval minstrelsy, where the achievements of his knights, or paladins, rival those ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... did the same. No text was necessary. The picture told the tale to a people who could not read, just as the stained-glass windows and mosaics in the churches did. Everywhere the feeble literature of the period took the form either of verbal minstrelsy, drama, or pictured representations. You will recall how most of the early races first wrote in pictures instead of letters. There were hieroglyphics in Egypt; 'speaking stories' in Assyria; and picture-writing in Turkey, China, and Japan. The picture ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... written about 1150 in a mixture of Middle Frankish and Bavarian. It belongs to the order of Spielmannspoesie, or secular minstrelsy; but the author makes frequent reference to what 'the books' say, and evidently meant his work to be read. (The earlier gleemen, so far as known, could not read or write, got their material from oral tradition and composed their poems to be sung ...
— An anthology of German literature • Calvin Thomas
... stane', he had scarcely a rival, and he was skilled in all the learned lore of the time, wrote poetry, composed music both sacred and profane, and was a complete minstrel, able to sing beautifully and to play on the harp and organ. His Queen, the beautiful Joan Beaufort, had been the lady of his minstrelsy in the days of his captivity, ever since he had watched her walking on the slopes of Windsor Park, and wooed her in verses that are still preserved. They had now been eleven years married, and their Court was one bright spot of civilization, refinement, and grace, amid the savagery of Scotland. ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... early years were pass'd far on The hills of Ettrick wild and lone; Through summer sheen and winter shade Tending the flocks that o'er them stray'd. In bold enthusiastic glee I sung rude strains of minstrelsy, Which mingling with died o'er the dale, Unheeded as the plover's wail. Oft where the waving rushes shed A shelter frail around my head, Weening, though not through hopes of fame, To fix on these more lasting ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... and a half books must be considered irreparable. In the Germania he had shown the power of that liberty which the barbarians enjoyed, had indicated their polity, in which, even then the germs of feudalism, chivalry, the worship of the sex, troubadour minstrelsy, fairy mythology, and, above all, representative government, existed. In the Historiae he paints with tremendous power the disorganisation, of the Roman state, the military anarchy which made the diadem the gift of ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... here, old friend, I want thee now To ramble back with me again To where of old McPherson and Crane, And Francis Clemow, too, I think, Did business at the Basin's brink. And Bindon Burton Alton, who Has vanished from terrestial view; The poet with the flashing eye— The true born son of minstrelsy! Who sang so sweetly, memory still Trembles with the undying thrill. Which throbbed in melting tones of fire From Bindon Burton Alton's lyre, Alas! alas! that such a soul Should sink a victim to the bowl. Thomas MacKay, who's worthy name Is well known even to modern fame. ...
— Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants • William Pittman Lett
... night's golden constellations dimly shine as day draws on, And the moon must veil her beauties at the rising of the sun. Let the grove be wrapt in silence as the nightingale outflings Her unrivaled minstrelsy, th' eclipse of every bird ...
— Old Groans and New Songs - Being Meditations on the Book of Ecclesiastes • F. C. Jennings
... had complained that his life had been without an aim; now he determined that it should be so no longer. The dawning hope began to gladden him that he might take his place among the bards of Scotland, who, themselves mostly unknown, have created that atmosphere of minstrelsy which envelopes and glorifies their native country. This hope and aim is recorded in an entry of his commonplace book, of the probable date ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... of modern minstrelsy shows how very dangerous it is to write even on the English poetry of the day. Eighteen is long odds against a single critic, and Major Bellenden, in "Old Mortality," tells us that three to one are odds as long as ever any warrior met victoriously, ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang
... is given from Scott's Minstrelsy (1803). He remarks, 'The ballad is given from tradition.' No. 29 in the Abbotsford MS., 'Scotch Ballads, Materials for Border Minstrelsy,' is Young Benjie (or Boonjie as there written) in thirteen stanzas, headed 'From Jean Scott,' and written in William Laidlaw's hand. All of this except the first stanza is transferred, with or without changes, to Scott's ballad, which is ...
— Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series • Frank Sidgwick
... thou not sweet words among That heaven-resounding minstrelsy? Heardst thou not that those who die Awake in a world of ecstasy? How love, when limbs are interwoven, And sleep, when the night of life is cloven, And thought to the world's dim boundaries clinging, And music when one's ...
— The Celtic Twilight • W. B. Yeats
... was situated just beyond the Border in Scotland, in that region of romantic and poetical traditions, full of the charm of early legendary and ballad lore, of the associations of Burns's songs and Scott's Border minstrelsy, pervaded with the old superstitions, half-beliefs, dating from as far back as the days of Thomas the Rhymer, and the later powerful influence of the Wizard of the North, the mighty ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... so drear and chill Whilst making leafless branch and tree, Whilst sweeping over vale and hill With all her doleful minstrelsy. November wails the summer's death In such a melancholy voice, She has a withering, blighting breath; She does not bid ...
— The Mountain Spring And Other Poems • Nannie R. Glass
... me into East Cheap: One cries "Ribs of beef and many a pie!" Pewter pots they clattered on a heap; There was harpe, pipe, and minstrelsy: "Yea, by cock!" "Nay, by cock!" some began cry; Some sung of "Jenkin and Julian" for their meed; But, for lack of money, I might ...
— English Satires • Various
... Eleanor, "since it is possible that the knight you favour may be notoriously inept in arms, you shall have resource to another trial of skill—namely that of minstrelsy. Here (like my predecessor of the same name, Queen Eleanor of ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... patrons of these establishments are gentlemen connected with navigation, and very young men who, for the price of a ticket, a cigar, and a glass of beer, purchase the flattering delusion that they are "seeing life," and "going it with a perfect looseness." The performances consist of Ethiopian minstrelsy, comic songs, farces, and the dancing of "beauteous Terpsichorean nymphs"; and these succeed one another with not a minute's intermission for three or four hours. At St. Louis, where gentlemen connected with navigation are numerous, the Varieties ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... than ever sung in Po, A shriller nightingale than ever bless'd The prouder groves of self-admiring Rome. Blithe was each valley, and each shepherd proud, While he did chant his rural minstrelsy: Attentive was full many a dainty ear, Nay, hearers hung upon his melting tongue, While sweetly of his Fairy Queen he sung; While to the waters' fall he tun'd for fame, And in each bark engrav'd Eliza's name: And yet for all this unregarding soil Unlac'd the ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... This midnight wind doth swell! With its quaint, pensive minstrelsy, Hope's passionate farewell: To the dreamy joys of early years, Ere yet grief's canker fell On the heart's bloom—ay, well may tears, Start at that ...
— Fostina Woodman, the Wonderful Adventurer • Avis A. (Burnham) Stanwood
... thee, that no man wots, save he or she who feels it, who has it, and who loves GOD singing therewith. One thing tell I thee, it is of heaven, and GOD gives it to whom He will, but not without great grace coming before. Who has it, he thinks all the song and all the minstrelsy of earth naught but sorrow and woe (compared) thereto. In sovereign rest shall they be who get it. Wanderers and brawlers, and keepers of comers and goers early and late night and day, or any who are seized with any sin witfully and ...
— The Form of Perfect Living and Other Prose Treatises • Richard Rolle of Hampole
... is the only way in this enchanted house. But I was thinking that by rights, while we are standing here, those windows should blaze with lights and break forth with the noise of dancing and minstrelsy. To such a castle, high against such a velvet night as this, would Sir Lancelot come, or Sir Gawain, or Sir Perceval, at the close of ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... Edwin was no vulgar boy: Deep thought oft seem'd to fix his infant eye. Dainties he heeded not, nor gaude, nor toy, Save one short pipe of rudest minstrelsy: Silent when glad; affectionate, though shy; And now his look was most demurely sad; And now he laugh'd aloud, yet none knew why. The neighbours stared and sigh'd, yet bless'd the lad: Some deem'd him wondrous wise, and ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... with eyes to see, With ears to hear their minstrelsy; Through us no harm, by deed or word, Shall ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [June, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... cloud-robed sea Shall mourn him first; and then the mother land Weeping in silence by his empty hand And fallen sword that flashed for Liberty. Song-bringer of a glad new minstrelsy, He came and found joy sleeping and swift fanned Old pagan fires, then snatched an altar brand And wrote, "The fearless only shall be free!" Oh, by the flame that made thine heart a home, By the wild surges of thy ...
— A Cluster of Grapes - A Book of Twentieth Century Poetry • Various
... centuries. The Pillar was brought there by one of the Rajput princes who founded in the middle of the eleventh century the first city really known to history as Delhi. There Prithvi Raja reigned, who still lives in Indian minstrelsy as the embodiment of Hindu chivalry, equally gallant and daring in love and in war—the last to make a stand in northern India against the successive waves of Mahomedan conquest which Central Asia had begun to pour in upon ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... while the wide earth echoing rung To their strange minstrelsy, The little glittering spirits sung, Or ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... magnifical, Or that may tend to London's graceful state, Be unperform'd; as shows and solemn feasts, Watches in armour, triumphs, cresset-lights[268], Bonfires, bells, and peals of ordnance. And, Pleasure, see that plays be published, May-games and masques, with mirth and minstrelsy, Pageants and school-feasts, bears and puppet plays. Myself will muster upon Mile-end Green, As though we saw, and fear'd not to be seen; Which will their spies in such a wonder set, To see us reck so little such a foe, Whom all the world admires, save only we. And we respect our ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... at length returned to his own pure and original style; and, like the dying swan, he sings the sweeter as he is approaching the land where the voice of his minstrelsy shall no more be heard. There is a calm melancholy in the close of his present ode which is very pathetic, ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... A hectic flush burned on my mother's cheeks; She daily failed and nearer drew to death. Pauline would often come with sun-lit face, Cheating the day of half its languid hours With cheering chapters from the holy book, And border tales and wizard minstrelsy: And mother loved her all the better for it. With feeble hands upon our sad-bowed heads, And in a voice all tremulous with tears, She said to us: 'Dear children, love each other— Bear and forbear, and come to me in heaven;' And praying for us ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... voice mute amid the festal crowd, When lay of hopeless love, or glory won, Aroused the fearful or subdued the proud. At each according pause was heard aloud Thine ardent symphony sublime and high! Fair dames and crested chiefs attention bowed; For still the burden of thy minstrelsy Was Knighthood's dauntless deed, ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... of the quarter sought the near-by Bowery, with its brilliantly lighted drinking dens, its concert halls, where negro minstrelsy was featured, and its theatres where the plays were immoral comedies or melodramas glorifying the exploits of picturesque criminals. News-boys, street-sweepers, rag-pickers, begging girls filled the galleries of these places of amusement. Here is ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... a concert saloon. FRITZ enters and goes through an entire programme of negro minstrelsy, to the wild delight of the gallery. At last the lazy curtain ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 18, July 30, 1870 • Various
... and well from the land of Faylinn, and much did he entertain the King and all the court with tales of the smallness of the Wee Folk, and their marvel at his own size, and their bravery and beauty, and their marble palaces and matchless minstrelsy. ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston
... the amorous selections of that crude minstrelsy made any impression upon her, she gave no indication. Before the songs ended she withdrew to the rude shelter that had been fashioned for her and wrapped herself in her blanket. But the pistol holster lay close to her hand. When she rose at day-break they ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... O heart, for Death steps noiseless nigh, Hist to the dirges o'er the sleeping sea! Dim funeral trains pass melancholy by And monotone their mournful minstrelsy. It is the grave that opes by Heav'n's decree, And steeps each thing in its sepulchral breath, The self-same grave that soon must yawn for thee, The grave wherein all darkness slumbereth, While all around is fastened ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott
... strange parallelisms, if this fatal enterprise, like that of John Brown afterwards, should thus triumphantly have embalmed itself in music. But I have found no other trace of such a piece of border-minstrelsy, and it is probable that even this plaintive ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... the minstrel first part with which we are all familiar. There was this difference: The jokes hit off exclusively local affairs and conditions. The officers who served as instructors at West Point did not by any means escape in the running fire of minstrelsy nonsense. ...
— Dick Prescott's First Year at West Point • H. Irving Hancock
... could have revived the true heroic style, it would have been done by Walter Scott, with his delight in the border minstrelsy, and his martial ardour; but the romantic spirit was too strong upon him. He had laid hold of the right tradition, could give picturesque scenes and characters of a bygone time, and Bonnie Dundee is a ringing ballad; yet his style in ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... the three were sitting on the terrace with a world of silver light and cobalt shadows about them. That is to say, two of them sat there in silence while the third came and went about his duties of changing records and needles and the winding of the machine—for he still dedicated himself to minstrelsy. ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... great lyrists inspired by a local genius, keenest of popular satirists, narrative poet of the people, spokesman of their higher as of their lower natures, stood on the verge between two eras. Half Jacobite, nursling of old minstrelsy, he was also half Jacobin, an early-born child of the upheaval that closed the century; as essentially a foe of Calvinism as Hume himself. Master musician of his race, he was, as Thomas Campbell notes, severed, for good and ill, ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... Burns most regularly at his best. And excellence in song-writing is a rare gift. The snatches scattered here and there throughout the plays of Shakspeare are perhaps the only collection of lyrics that can at all stand comparison with the wealth of minstrelsy Burns has left behind him. This was his undying legacy to the world. Song-writing was a labour of love, almost his only comfort and consolation in the dark days of his later years. He set himself to this as to a congenial task, and he knew that he was writing himself into ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... by reading his poetry. It has no results. The reader rises up from the perusal with new images and associations, but he remains the same man that he was before. A great mind is one that moulds the minds of others. Mr. Scott has put the Border Minstrelsy and scattered traditions of the country into easy, animated verse. But the Notes to his poems are just as entertaining as the poems themselves, and his poems are ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... his own name into Donizetti. The Scottish predilections of our composer show themselves in the music of "Don Pasquale," noticeably in "Com' e gentil;" and the score of "Lucia" is strongly flavored by Scottish sympathy and minstrelsy. ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... streets into their houses, crying in dreadful voices, 'Les Allemands!' And there, by the old church, round the corner, came the Highlanders! I stood still on the pavement and sang 'Scots wha hae' at the top of my old cracked voice, and they, appreciating the welcome, and excusing the minstrelsy, waved their hands to me. The Staff was here, the Flying Corps, three regiments, English and Scottish—such brave, bright, orderly, kind young men. On September 6 the cannon sounded very near. I went into the ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... unison with each other, and in time with their stroke, till the voices and oars were heard no more from the distance. I believe I have mentioned to you before the peculiar characteristics of this veritable negro minstrelsy—how they all sing in unison, having never, it appears, attempted or heard anything like part-singing. Their voices seem oftener tenor than any other quality, and the tune and time they keep something quite ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... hoary past, and when still hardly more than a boy, burrowed among the manuscripts of the Advocates' Library in Edinburgh, making himself an able antiquary at a time when most youth are idling or philandering. Moreover, he was himself the son of a border chief and knew minstrelsy almost at his nurse's knee: and the lilt of a ballad was always like wine to his heart. It makes you think of Sir Philip Sidney's splendid testimony to such an influence: "I never heard the old song of Percy and Douglas that I found not my heart moved ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... one corner staring out of the window at the cab lights that wove in and out among the trees, all seeming to be bent upon joyous courses. Taxicabs were still new in New York, and the theme of popular minstrelsy. Landry had sung her a ditty he heard in some theater on ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... solemn hush fell upon the vast audience as a sad-faced minstrel uttered in tear-compelling accents the most pathetic words in all the literature of minstrelsy: ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... has been enlivened sometimes by the sound of the Bearnese minstrelsy; and, on one occasion, listened to a band of mountaineers from Luchon, who undertook, a few years since, a journey through Europe, singing their choruses in all the principal cities. On hearing the above song of Despourrins, the ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... influence Salinguerra. He must interest him in the cause of knowledge; which is the people's cause. With this determination, he proceeds once more to the appointed presence. His minstrelsy is at first a failure. He is, as usual, outside his song. He is trying to guide it; it is not carrying him away. He is paralysed by the very consciousness that he is urging the head of the Ghibellines to become a Guelph. Salinguerra's habitual tact and good-nature cannot conceal his own sense ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... may be heard Save the soul-soothing strains of thy harmonist bird, For they seem on the soft wing of quiet to come, Like celestial melodies luring us home, Faint breathings from Heaven, to bid us prepare For peals of ethereal minstrelsy there. ...
— Heart Utterances at Various Periods of a Chequered Life. • Eliza Paul Kirkbride Gurney
... which thou lamentest—that shall be A song in all men's speech, a tongue of flame Between the burning lips of Poesy; And the nine daughters of Mnemos'y-ne, With Prince Apollo, leader of the nine, Shall make thee deathless in their minstrelsy! Yea, for thou shalt ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... thy face again, My own romantic Bronx, and it will be A face more pleasant than the face of men. Thy waves are old companions, I shall see A well-remembered form in each old tree, And hear a voice long loved in thy wild minstrelsy. ...
— The Culprit Fay - and Other Poems • Joseph Rodman Drake
... then present day; and of the miracles and adventures of the more marvellous and adventurous romances there is nothing left but the very pleasant enumeration of the names of favourite stories in the account of the minstrelsy at Flamenca's wedding. The author knew all that was to be known in romance, of Greek, Latin, or British invention—Thebes and Troy, Alexander and Julius Caesar, Samson and Judas Maccabeus, Ivain and Gawain and Perceval, Paris and Tristram, and all ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... a tavern where they were. King Richard the fire bet; Thomas to the spit him set; Fouk Doyley tempered the wood: Dear abought they that good! When they had drunken well, a fin, A minstralle com theirin, And said, "Gentlemen, wittily, Will ye have any minstrelsy?" Richard bade that she should go; That turned him to mickle woe! The minstralle took in mind,[1] And said, "Ye are men unkind; And, if I may, ye shall for-think[2] Ye gave me neither meat ne drink. For gentlemen should bede To minstrels that abouten ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... of heaven's own beauty on her face, was to Haldane like the watch of the shepherds on the hillside near Bethlehem. At times, in the deep hush that followed the storm, he was almost sure that he heard, faint and far away, angelic minstrelsy and song. ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... Padua, Ferrara, six hundred years ago. There was not a lively sympathy with Sordello himself. Who were the "Pisan pair"? Lanzi's pages were turned up to discover. And Greek scholars recognized the "Loxian." But any reader might be pardoned for not at once divining that the double rillet of minstrelsy, on page 37, was the Troubadour and the Trouvere, nor for refusing to read pages 155 and 156 without a tolerable outfit of information upon the historical ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... Sweet Orpheus, lord of minstrelsy, For this with flute and pipe came nigh The danger of the dog's heads three That ravening at hell's door doth lie; Fain was Narcissus, fair and shy, For love's love lightly lost and won, In a deep well to drown and die; Good luck has he that ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... been. And a cry broke from all the folk Gathered above on Ilion's rock: "Up, up, O fear is over now! To Pallas, who hath saved us living, To Pallas bear this victory-vow!" Then rose the old man from his room, The merry damsel left her loom, And each bound death about his brow With minstrelsy ...
— The Trojan women of Euripides • Euripides
... green-wood side, at summer eve, Poetic visions charm my closing eye; And fairy-scenes, that Fancy loves to weave, Shift to wild notes of sweetest Minstrelsy; 'Tis thine to range in busy quest of prey, Thy feathery antlers quivering with delight, Brush from my lids the hues of heav'n away, And all is Solitude, and all is Night! —Ah now thy barbed shaft, relentless fly, Unsheaths its terrors in the sultry air! No guardian ...
— Poems • Samuel Rogers
... Goethe's Goetz von Berlichingen—the first of which was hastily made into a little book, daintily printed and bound, in order to help his suit with an early love, so easy, so little premeditated, was this beginning. With equal simplicity and absence of intention he slid into the Border Minstrelsy, which he intended not for the beginning of a long literary career, but in the first place for "a job" to Ballantyne the printer, whom he had persuaded to establish himself in Edinburgh—the best of printers and the most attached of faithful ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... than an English lark) is doing his best to cheer me with his music. This noble bird, though so far from his native fields, and shut up in his narrow prison, pours forth his rapturous melody in an almost unbroken stream from dawn to sunset. He allows no change of season to abate his minstrelsy, to any observable degree, and seems equally happy and musical all the year round. I have had him nearly two years, and though of course he must moult his feathers yearly, I have not observed the change of plumage, nor have I noticed ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson |
