"Minstrelsy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... over their heads; and then drew near the sound of many trumpets blowing together, and thereafter the voices of many folk singing; and then were the great doors thrown open, and the bishop and his priests came into the church with singing and minstrelsy, and thereafter came the whole throng of the folk, and presently the nave of the church was filled by it, as when the water follows the cutting of the dam, and fills up the dyke. Thereafter came the bishop and his mates into the ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris
... Becket, father of Thomas of Canterbury. Every one has heard how HIS Saracen bride sought him in London. (Robert of Gloucester's Life and Martyrdom of Thomas Becket, Percy Society. See Child's Introduction, IV., i. 1861, and Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. xv., 1827.) The legend of the dissolved marriage is from the common stock of ballad lore, Motherwell found an example in the state of Cantefable, alternate prose and verse, like Aucassin and Nicolette. Thus the cockney rhyme ...
— A Collection of Ballads • Andrew Lang
... mermaids, Finned and fair, Sleek with their combs Their yellow hair.... Bates and Giles- On the shingle sat, Gazing at Turvey's Floating hat. But never a ripple Nor bubble told Where he was supping Off plates of gold. Never an echo Rilled through the sea Of the feasting and dancing And minstrelsy. They called-called-called: Came no reply: Nought but the ripples' Sandy sigh. Then glum and silent They sat instead, Vacantly brooding On home and bed, Till both together Stood up and said.- 'Us knows not, dreams not, Where you be, Turvey, unless In the deep blue sea; ...
— Peacock Pie, A Book of Rhymes • Walter de la Mare
... 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 and ...
— The Trojan women of Euripides • Euripides
... The pastourelle has sometimes been described as a popular form, but it would be difficult to determine wherein its 'popularity,' in the sense intended, consists, for it is easily recognized as the offspring of a knightly minstrelsy, and indeed is scarcely less artificial or conventional than the Italian eclogue. Although the situation is frequently developed with resource and invention on the part of the individual poet, the general type is rigidly fixed. The narrator, ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... arts have I, all noble; I play at chess so free, At ravelling runes I'm ready, At books and smithery; I'm skill'd o'er ice at skimming On skates, I shoot and row, And few at harping match me, Or minstrelsy, ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... wide earth echoing rung To their strange minstrelsy, The little glittering spirits sung, Or seemed ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... twang of 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 ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... Walter Scott's Border Minstrelsy, Percy's collection, Ellis's early English Metrical Romances, the European continental poems of Walter of Aquitania, and the Nibelungen, of pagan stock, but monkish-feudal redaction; the history of the Troubadours, by Fauriel; even the far-back cumbrous old Hindu epics, as indicating the Asian ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... Lion was a true Englishman, even in his love of fighting. What would he say if he knew where England lies to-day? What would he say if he knew the awful fate that has come upon this fair and pleasant land, from whose poets and singers he learned the art of minstrelsy?" ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... harp, and minstrelsy now tune All hearts to joyful mood; The cheerful music does not ...
— Hymns, Songs, and Fables, for Young People • Eliza Lee Follen
... hot; drank ginger-beer; wrote letters. Then as I was going to dinner, enter a big splay-footed, trifle-headed, old pottering minister, who came to annoy me about a claim which one of his parishioners has to be Earl of Annandale, and which he conceits to be established out of the Border Minstrelsy. He mentioned a curious thing—that three brothers of the Johnstone family, on whose descendants the male representative of these great Border chiefs devolved, were forced to fly to the north in consequence of their feuds with the Maxwells, ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... meat and drink was done, And ended was the joy of minstrelsy, Queen Helen spake, beholding how the sun Within the heaven of bronze was riding high: "Truly, my friends, methinks the hour is nigh When men may crave to know what need doth bring To Lacedaemon, o'er wet ways and dry, This prince that bears the ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang
... fear from such fair intruders. Its song is not strange to their ears, though there are some notes they have not hitherto heard. It is their own mocking-bird of the States, introducing into its mimic minstrelsy certain variations, the imitations of sounds ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... begli occhi a terra inchina." When Love doth those sweet eyes to earth incline, And weaves those wandering notes into a sigh Soft as his touch, and leads a minstrelsy Clear-voiced and pure, angelic and divine, He makes sweet havoc in this heart of mine, And to my thoughts brings transformation high, So that I say, "My time has come to die, If fate so blest a death for me design." ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... quiet house, and lawn, and flowers, and fair human creatures, and shining water, all sleeping breathless in the glorious light beneath the glorious blue, till we doze off, lulled by the murmur of a thousand insects, and the rich minstrelsy of nightingale ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... was 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. ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine
... (larger 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
... untrammelled by the forms of art, their sweetest melodies. How often do their lightsome, inspiriting carollings ring out upon the morning air, persuasively calling us from our couches to listen in delight to Nature's minstrelsy! "After man," says a writer, "the birds occupy the highest rank in Nature's concerts. They make the woods, the gardens, and the fields resound with their merry warbles. Their warbled 'shake' has never been equalled by human gifts ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... the early reference to hawking. Minstrelsy (hearpan wyn), saga-telling, racing, swimming, harpooning of sea-animals, feasting, and the bestowal of jewels, swords, and rings, are the other amusements ...
— Beowulf • James A. Harrison and Robert Sharp, eds.
... reveries were 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 ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... the marriage-tables 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 ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar
... all; yet first for thee, O lover with the kindling eye! Quick to discern the minstrelsy Where planets sway and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... rivers Ottawa and Saint Lawrence by four boatmen who, from time to time, in a low tone, as if afraid of awakening the dawn, chaunted, now an old song of Normandy, and now a ballad upon the fate of some lost voyageur. The moon was yet shining, and he was in the mood to enjoy such minstrelsy; but when they neared the opposite shore, a feeling of sadness and apprehension stole over him, as he thought of meeting his father, to whom he knew he must either communicate distasteful tidings, or what was worse to his ingenuous mind, practice ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... and tall like the Woodlanders, for they were partly of the same blood, but burnt they were both ruddy and brown: they were of more words than the Woodlanders but yet not many-worded. They knew well all those old story-lays, (and this partly by the minstrelsy of the Woodlanders,) but they had scant skill in wizardry, and would send for the Woodlanders, both men and women, to do whatso they needed therein. They were very hale and long-lived, whereas they dwelt in clear bright air, and they mostly went light-clad even in the winter, ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... 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 sweet ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... them proved that he entered deeply into the spirit of the original. Soon afterward he contributed some pieces to Lewis' "Tales of Wonder," which are almost the only fragments of that work which have escaped oblivion. At last, in 1802, he gave to the world the two first volumes of his "Border Minstrelsy," printed by his old schoolfellow, Ballantyne; its literary merits were enhanced by the beauty of its typographical execution, and its appearance made an epoch in Scottish literary history. The ballads of this collection ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... now, and Brett, Barker, and Hogsflesh, where be they? Brett, of all bowlers fleetest yet That drove the bails in disarray? And Small that would, like Orpheus, play Till wild bulls followed his minstrelsy? {2} Booker, and Quiddington, and May? Beneath ...
— New Collected Rhymes • Andrew Lang
... said the lark's sweet voice. "I see no cause to repent my choice; You build your nest in the lofty pine, But is your slumber more sweet than mine? You make more noise in the world than I, But whose is the sweeter minstrelsy?" ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... the 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! ...
— Poems • Samuel Rogers
... 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 sphere ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith
... for all 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 ...
— The Rose-Jar • Thomas S. (Thomas Samuel) Jones
... him at first, but he found there some, like himself, drawn from the smaller towns of the South. Others in the company were the relics of the old days of negro minstrelsy, and still others recruited from the church choirs in the large cities. Silas was an adaptable fellow, but it seemed a little hard to fall in with the ways of his new associates. Most of them seemed as far away from him in their knowledge of worldly things as had the ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... 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
... 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 ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... of Sir Walter's life, he visited in the counties of Berwick, Roxburgh, and Selkirk, the various scenes which his graphic pen has delineated and incorporated in his minstrelsy and romance. The summer when the preceding notes were made, I happened to be in Kelso, and took ride one day to visit the worthy minister of a neighbouring parish, in which the celebrated border keep Smailholme tower is situated, the scene of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 583 - Volume 20, Number 583, Saturday, December 29, 1832 • Various
... whose waist he had most lovingly passed his arm under pretence of keeping her from falling, and to whom, in the midst of all his attentions to the party at large, he devoted himself considerably, pressing his suit with all the aid of his native minstrelsy. ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... presence, though now he was nearly sixty years old. A wise knight he was, bold in enterprise, and of good counsel. Never did he suffer any unbeliever in his company, and he was very pious, every day making many and long prayers, and giving alms to the poor folk at his gate. He took much delight in minstrelsy, and at his midnight supper songs and virelays were chanted to him. Till about three o'clock in the morning he listened while Master Froissart read aloud his poems, tales, or histories, while the courtiers yawned, no doubt, and wished for bedtime. But it was the good Count's manner to ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... courtier gay, Dipped down with a dalliant song, And twanged his wings through the roundelay Of love the whole day long: Yet my rose turned from his minstrelsy And hid in the leaves ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... Ireland is a matter of tradition; on the first step of the invader the genius of chivalric song and melody departed from Erin. Scotland retains her independence, and those strains which are known in northern Europe as the most inspiriting and delightful, are recognised as the native minstrelsy of Caledonia. The origin of Scottish song and melody is as difficult of settlement as is the era or the genuineness of Ossian. There probably were songs and music in Scotland in ages long prior to the period of written history. Preserved and transmitted ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... all strangely mingled together, finally settling down into a rude strain, which, coming from stentorian lungs, found a ready echo in every jutting rock and space of wood for a mile round. The musician went on merrily from verse to verse of his forest minstrelsy as he continued to approach; describing in his strain, with a ready ballad-facility, the numberless pleasures to be found in the life of the woodman. Uncouthly, and in a style partaking rather more of the savage than ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... 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 Theatre is large, highly decorated, conducted at ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... Berlichingen." The creation of Mignon, in "Wilhelm Meister," furnished Scott with the character of Fenella in his "Peveril of the Peak." Scott began his career as a writer with a translation of Buerger's "Ballads." His most successful metrical pieces, "The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," "The Lay of the Last Minstrel," "Marmion," and "The Lady of the Lake," for the most part appeared during the opening years of the Nineteenth Century. Then came the great series of the "Waverley Novels," named ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... the arm uplifted, And nerved with God's own might, In an age of glory living In a holy cause to fight: And whilom catching music Of the future's minstrelsy, As those who strike for freedom Blows that ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... "the first 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 ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... 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 of iron ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... gratification upon the sky and landscape, and on the human form divine when 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 exhales fragrance: ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... Walter was 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 obsolete, it was ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... that thou would'st feel a pang for me, 'Twere sweet, methinks, to sleep beneath the wave; Its murmuring song, like sweetest minstrelsy, Would rest a wanderer in an early grave, Within thee, River, many a pale face sleeps— And many a redman's ghost his vigil keeps— And many a maid has watched the dark banks over— He comes not, yet, in truth, ...
— The Emigrant - or Reflections While Descending the Ohio • Frederick William Thomas
... improvement, it chalks out a few strong but incorrect sketches, gives the rude out-lines of general art, and leaves the filling up to the leisure of happier days, and the refinement of more enlightened times. Their drawing is a rude Sbozzo, and their poetry wild minstrelsy. ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... every week was 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 and were ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... wrought, Into my soul, the spell of thought— Of tender, pensive thought, which made Me love the forest's deepest shade, And listen, with delighted ear, To the low voice of waters near, As gliding, gushing, gurgling by, They utter their sweet minstrelsy. I scarce need give that charm a name; Thy heart, I know, hath felt the same,— Ah! where is mind, or heart, or soul, That has not bowed ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands
... fulfil that mission. Hitherto he 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
... smile and friendship's due; But of that age now all too few The thoughts that with me yet will stay; As from the hours of festive play There linger on mysterious notes, And in our minds the memory floats Of minstrelsy and music gay. ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... 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 yede, Of their meat, ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... of 5302 verses, 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 or recited ...
— An anthology of German literature • Calvin Thomas
... 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
... 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. ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... wail in her coral caves, and the sprite that lives in the waterfalls shall mourn! Strange shapes shall hew thy monument in the recesses of the lonely rocks! ever by moonlight shall the fairies pause from their roundel when some wild note of their minstrelsy reminds them of thine own,—ceasing from their revelries, to weep for the silence of that mighty lyre, which breathed alike a revelation of the mysteries ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... "pictorial theology," remind me how strange it must appear to you that in this sketch of the intellectual state of Italy in the thirteenth century I have taken no note of literature itself, nor of the fine art of Music with which it was associated in minstrelsy. The corruption of the meaning of the word "clerk," from "a chosen person" to "a learned one," partly indicates the position of literature in the war between the golden crest and scarlet cap; but in the higher ranks, literature and music became the grace ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... of the principal gods was on the top of Mount O-lymʹpus in Greece. Here they dwelt in golden palaces, and they had a Council Chamber where they frequently feasted together at grand banquets, celestial music being rendered by A-polʹlo, the god of minstrelsy, and the Muses, who were the divinities of poetry ...
— The Story of Troy • Michael Clarke
... of Love held by ladies of high rank were originally courts in which the rules of minstrelsy were laid down, they pronounced on the qualifications of a candidate, they polished and cherished the Langue d'oc in its purity, dictated the subjects upon which the troubadours were to compose their lays, judged their pretensions, settled their controversies, recompensed ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... 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 ...
— Old Groans and New Songs - Being Meditations on the Book of Ecclesiastes • F. C. Jennings
... 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. ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... 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
... yet 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, and some believed ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... find Achilles singing to his lyre, so the English musicians and story-tellers were originally amateurs of high rank. We read of King Alfred charming the Danes with his minstrelsy. So also in the Arthurian legends Sir Kaye is represented as amusing the company; but at the time of Hoel Dha's Welsh laws, the bard was paid, for we read that the king was to allow him a horse and a woollen garment, and the ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... made our friends with their trunks very conscious of their disproportion to the accommodations of the smallest. They were the sole occupants of the omnibus, and they were embarrassed to be received at their hotel with a burst of minstrelsy from a whole band of music. Isabel felt that a single stringed instrument of some timid note would have been enough; and Basil was going to express his own modest preference for a jew's-harp, when the music ceased with a sudden clash of the cymbals. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... one 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 ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... loyalty to the Crown, had early manifested an attachment to his cause. Here the inhabitants were prepared to receive him in triumph, under arches thrown across the streets, with bands of music, and minstrelsy commemorating his successes. But Pizarro, with more discretion, declined the honors of an ovation while the country remained in the hands of his enemies. Sending forward the main body of his troops, he followed on foot, attended by a slender retinue of friends and citizens, ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... Caledon, [10] Was thy 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 ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... first among modern 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 ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... the nightingale Was pausing in her heaven-taught tale: 'Now drain the cup,' said Lionel, 'Which the poet-bird has crowned so well With the wine of her bright and liquid song! 1120 Heardst thou not sweet words among That heaven-resounding minstrelsy? Heard'st thou not that those who die Awake in a world of ecstasy? That love, when limbs are interwoven, 1125 And sleep, when the night of life is cloven, And thought, to the world's dim boundaries clinging, And music, when one ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... great amusement of the period, compared with which the German duel, the Mexican bullfight, or the American game of football are mild sports. The other diversions of the knights and nobles were hunting, hawking, feasting, drinking, making love, minstrelsy, and chess. Intellectual ability formed no part of their accomplishments, and a knowledge of reading and writing was ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... of our worship, his fingers on the keys have often led us nearer to God's presence than could the poor and broken messages I tried to preach to you. For the other world was always close to Paul Burton and there was a magic in his minstrelsy, which was a gift from God. I sometimes wonder if in a less simple world he could have been so happy or if his life would have been so unmarred, away from the songs of birds and the lilt of mountain breezes. ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... resistless stroke, When life was green with me. Its lofty head it proudly rears To greet the summer sky, Whilst, bending with the weight of years, I feebly totter by. And hushed are all the thousand songs That filled these branches high: Echo no more for me prolongs The woodland minstrelsy. Silence has gathered round life's hall; My friends are in the clay; I hear no more the footsteps fall, That cheered my early day; I see no more the faces dear, Which shone around my hearth: Bereft of all—I sojourn here— Still happy, though ...
— Enthusiasm and Other Poems • Susanna Moodie
... 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 ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... some hearts may beat Responsive to thy lay; The tide of sympathy may meet Thy master's lonely way; And kindred souls from envy free May listen to its minstrelsy. ...
— Whittier-land - A Handbook of North Essex • Samuel T. Pickard
... can express the excitement which this rough minstrelsy—marred as it is by our poor translation from the Romance-tongue in which it was chanted—produced amongst the Norman guests; less perhaps, indeed, the song itself, than the recognition of the minstrel; and as he ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... speculated much upon the thoughts of men about to die; yet it cannot be too ingenuous to believe that such thoughts vary as the men, their characters, and conditions of life vary. Nevertheless, pursuant with the traditions of minstrelsy and romance, it is conceivable that young, unmarried men, called upon to face desperate situations, might, at the crucial moment, rush to a common experience of summoning the vision, each of his heart's ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... brief stanzas, and easily might be mistaken for the grating buzz of an insect, especially if heard at a distance of a few rods. It possesses little or no musical quality, and is perhaps the most curious style of bird minstrelsy with which I am acquainted. In comparison the chippie's trill sounds loud and clear and bell-like, with a distinctly melodious quality of tone. The song of the little clay-colored sparrow is also marked by a kind of drawl, giving one the impression that the bird is just a little too ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... pure little child, with a trace 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
... and song,' exclaimed Eleanor, 'where they have courts of love and poetry, and tilts and tourneys and minstrelsy, and the sun shines as it never does in this cold bleak north; and above all there is Margaret, dear tender Margaret, almost a queen, as a queen she will be one day. Oh! I ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Sisters," is a ballad on an old theme popular in Scandinavia as well as in this country. There have been many versions of it. Dr. Rimbault published it from a broadside dated 1656. The version here given is Sir Walter Scott's, from his "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," with a few touches from other versions given in Professor Francis James Child's noble edition of "The English and Scottish Popular Ballads," which, when complete, will be the chief storehouse of ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various
... "Triumph to Nelida!" resounded uproariously through the dome. Suddenly the character of the music changed, ... from an appealing murmurous complaint and persuasion, it rose to a martial and almost menacing fervor; the roll of drums and the shrill, reedy warbling of pipes and other fluty minstrelsy crossed the silvery thread of strung harps and viols, ... the light from the fiery globe shot forth a new effulgence, this time in two broad rays, one a dazzling, pale azure, the other a clear, pearly white. Nelida's ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... other medicine, Nicias, against Love, neither unguent, methinks, nor salve to sprinkle,—none, save the Muses of Pieria! Now a delicate thing is their minstrelsy in man's life, and a sweet, but hard to procure. Methinks thou know'st this well, who art thyself a leech, and beyond all men art plainly dear to ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... Watt women as carefully as to the men; and these fortunately we find all that can be desired. His mother was Agnes Muirhead, a descendant of the Muirheads of Lachop, who date away back before the reign of King David, 1122. Scott, in his "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," gives us the old ballad of "The Laird of Muirhead," who played a great ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... spirits! now he slumbers! Ye have entranc'd him fairly with your numbers! This minstrelsy of yours I must repay,— Thou art not yet the man to hold the devil fast!— With fairest shapes your spells around him cast, And plunge him in a sea of dreams! But that this charm be rent, the threshold passed, Tooth of rat the way ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... Bombie, at the Threave Castle, [The reader is referred for particulars to Pitscottie's HISTORY OF SCOTLAND.] and that put Steenie mair and mair on his guard. So he spoke up like a man, and said he came neither to eat, or drink or make minstrelsy; but simply for his ain—to ken what was come o' the money he had paid, and to get a discharge for it; and he was so stout-hearted by this time that he charged Sir Robert for conscience-sake (he had no power to say the holy ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... 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 carnal lust and the joy of living with the Goddess of Love in the heart of the hills. Coming ...
— Wagner • John F. Runciman
... a-blaze, and of an appalling and suspicious brightness. Sounds, moreover, of mirth and revelry approached his ear. He would instantly have proceeded to ascertain the cause of this inauspicious merry-making had not Kate's injunction kept him aloof. The noise of minstrelsy was now heard—symptoms of the marriage-feast and the banquet. More than once he suspected some witchery, some delusion of the enemy to beguile him by enchantments. However, he resolved to be quiet; and, for the purpose of a more extended ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... they loosen the swords in their scabbards, and upraise a mighty shout, And the trumpet of the Niblungs through the lonely street rings out And stilleth the wind in the wall-nook: but hark, as its echoes die, How forth from that hall of the Eastlands comes the sound of minstrelsy, And the brazen doors swing open: but the Niblungs are at the door, And the bidden guests of Atli o'er the fateful threshold pour; There the music faileth before them, till its sound is over and done, And fair in the city behind them lies the flood of the morning sun: No man of the ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... the clarinet, the violoncello and the trombone, wild minstrelsy as of the doleful creatures in Ezekiel, discordant, but infinitely pathetic. Gone is that scarebabe stentor, that bellowing bull of Bashan the village blacksmith, gone is the melodious carpenter, gone the brawny shepherd with ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... true, then, Sir,' exclaimed Lilias. 'He doth verily add minstrelsy to his other graces? Know you the lines, Sir? Can you sing them to us? Oh, ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... couldn't refuse to hear what she might have, so very elaborately, to say for herself—he ought certainly to be at his ease; in illustration of which he whistled odd snatches to himself as he hung about on that cloud-dappled autumn Sunday, a mild private minstrelsy that his lips hadn't known since when? The interval of the twenty-four hours, made longer by a night of many more revivals than oblivions, had in fact dragged not a little; in spite of which, however, our extremely brushed-up and trimmed and polished friend knew an unprecedented ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... 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, ...
— Fostina Woodman, the Wonderful Adventurer • Avis A. (Burnham) Stanwood
... as much becolored by the wit of Professor Wilson as any daughter of a duchess whom Sir Joshua changed into a nymph. I think of Hogg as a sturdy sheep-tender, growing rebellious among the Cheviot flocks, crazed by a reading of the Border minstrelsy, drunken on books, (as his fellows were with "mountain-dew,") and wreaking his vitality on Gaelic rhymes,—which, it is true, have a certain blush and aroma of the heather-hills, but which never reached the excellence ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... the Nazarene, The Iliad, Odyssey, plots, doings, wanderings of Eneas, Hesiod, Eschylus, Sophocles, Merlin, Arthur, The Cid, Roland at Roncesvalles, the Nibelungen, The troubadours, minstrels, minnesingers, skalds, Chaucer, Dante, flocks of singing birds, The Border Minstrelsy, the bye-gone ballads, feudal tales, essays, plays, Shakespere, Schiller, Walter Scott, Tennyson, As some vast wondrous weird dream-presences, The great shadowy groups gathering around, Darting their mighty masterful eyes forward at thee, Thou! with as now thy bending ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... Hunter issued, as No. 4 of his 'Critical and Historical Tracts,' The Great Hero of the ancient Minstrelsy of England, Robin Hood. Amongst other discoveries, he found, in an Exchequer document of expenses in the royal household of Edward II., the name of 'Robyn Hode' occurring several times as a 'vadlet' or 'porteur de la chambre,' at the salary ...
— Ballads of Robin Hood and other Outlaws - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Fourth Series • Frank Sidgwick
... tale also; and I will reward him. And thou, I shall not make thee a man-at-arms this time, though trust me, I misdoubt thy hare-heart. There is no such look in thine eyes.' And he turned away and left us. So we wore the night merrily enough till the time appointed, what with minstrelsy and some deal ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris
... sorry to lose her. We have lost, besides, our friends Mr. and Mrs. Ogilvy, cultivated and refined people: they occupied the floor above us the last winter, and at the Baths of Lucca and Florence we have seen much of them for a year past. She published some time since a volume of 'Scottish Minstrelsy,' graceful and flowing, and aspires strenuously towards poetry; a pretty woman with three pretty children, of quick perceptions and active intelligence and sensibility. They are upright, excellent people in various ways, ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... verses, made continuous by the fact that the end of each sixth line forms the rhyme of the next five. Now, Gilles knew nothing of Southern minstrelsy, and if he had, the pitch he was screwed to would have shrilled such knowledge out of him. At 'Defors li ven a estar,' he came in, and sturdily forward. Richard saw him and put up his hand: on went ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... on the savoury herb Of knot-grass dew-besprent, and were in fold, I sat me down to watch upon a bank With ivy canopied, and interwove With flaunting honeysuckle, and began, Wrapt in a pleasing fit of melancholy, To meditate my rural minstrelsy, Till fancy had her fill. But ere a close The wonted roar was up amidst the woods, And filled the air with barbarous dissonance; At which I ceased, and listened them awhile, Till an unusual stop of sudden silence Gave ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton
... possibly accounted for the contrary character of the names, for there was little euphony in the minstrelsy of the one or a monopoly of brindle appearance in the other, for each faction's contingent, were about equally spotted with the sons of Ham. My friends, Benjamin & Barnes, were prominent as Brindles, and I, being to an extent a novice in the politics of the State, in a position to hear ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... maiden, wilt thou roam? Far safer 'twere to stay at home, Where thou mayst sit and piping please The poor and private cottages, Since cotes and hamlets best agree With this thy meaner minstrelsy. There with the reed thou mayst express The shepherd's fleecy happiness, And with thy eclogues intermix Some smooth and harmless bucolics. There on a hillock thou mayst sing Unto a handsome shepherdling, Or to a girl, ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... 'that the laudable custom of England to teach children their plain song and prick-song' is 'so decayed throughout all the realm as it is,' denounces the great practise of instrumental music by older students: "the minstrelsy of lutes, pipes, harps, and all other that standeth by such nice, fine, minikin fingering, (such as the most part of scholars whom I know use, if they use any,) is far more fit, for the womanishness of it, to dwell in the Court among ladies, than for any ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... 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 between ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... in hinter-snow- The pent heart-throbbings of the wan plateau- Wing through the pulsing spell thrown o'er the sea, In wild and shrieking blizzard minstrelsy. ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... rejoicings continued all that day, with dancing-women and singing-women, and all the instruments of mirth and minstrelsy were smitten, whilst the queen and the Vizier and his son were exceeding assiduous in keeping up the festivities, so the Lady Bedrulbudour should rejoice and her chagrin be dispelled; nay, they left nought that day of that which exciteth unto liesse but ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne
... 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 ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... breathing minstrelsy, farewell! The rose is colourless and withering fast, Sweet Philomel her song forgets to swell, And Summer's rich variety is past! The sear leaves wander, and the hoar of age Gathers her trophy for ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 392, Saturday, October 3, 1829. • Various
... the esteem our Teuton ancestors had for their scalds, or polishers of language, when poetry and music were linked together by the voice and harp of minstrelsy, and when the divine right to fill the office of bard meant the divine faculty to invent a few heroic stanzas to ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green
... badly chang'd with her, From Edward's days to these. Then all was jollity, Feasting and mirth, light wantonness and laughter, Piping and playing, minstrelsy and masking; 'Till life fled from us like an idle dream, A show of mummery without a meaning. My brother, rest and pardon to his soul, Is gone to his account; for this his minion, The revel-rout is done—But you were speaking Concerning her—I ...
— Jane Shore - A Tragedy • Nicholas Rowe
... 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 this short ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... day, As of this loving cup you take, and, drinking deep, Are glad at heart straightway To feel once more the friendly heat of the sun Creative in you (as when in youth it shone), And pulsing brainward with the rhythmic wealth Of all the summer whose high minstrelsy Shall soon crown field and tree, To call back age to youth again, and pain to perfect ...
— Walt Whitman Yesterday and Today • Henry Eduard Legler
... topics of the 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 ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... that song has, I tell 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 ...
— The Form of Perfect Living and Other Prose Treatises • Richard Rolle of Hampole
... the Teutonic knights under the land-master of the presbytery of Marienberg. He and Sir Nigel sat late in high converse as to bushments, outfalls, and the intaking of cities, with many tales of warlike men and valiant deeds. Then their talk turned to minstrelsy, and the stranger knight drew forth a cittern, upon which he played the minne-lieder of the north, singing the while in a high cracked voice of Hildebrand and Brunhild and Siegfried, and all the strength and beauty of the land of Almain. To this Sir Nigel answered with ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... by the phrase "great admittance" is rendered clear by a decree of Edward II. published in the year 1315, and called forth by the dishonest practice of certain persons who procured entertainment under colour of minstrelsy. It was therefore ordered that "to the houses of prelates, earls, and barons none resort to meat and drink unless he be a minstrel, and that of these minstrels there come none except it be three or four Minstrels of Honour at the most in one ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... The church evidently 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 page. Their composition would not bear criticism. Besides, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... brood Of woe self-solaced in her dreamy mood! Yet I will love to follow the sweet dream, Where Susquehannah pours his untamed stream, And on some hill, whose forest-frowning side Waves o'er the murmurs of his calmer tide; And I will build a cenotaph to thee, Sweet harper of time-shrouded minstrelsy! And there soothed sadly by the dirgeful wind, Muse on the sore ills I had ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... able to walk by himself. At a later period, when Miss Scott, Walter's aunt, removed from Smailholm to Kelso, the intercourse between the families was renewed. Scott was then an Edinburgh advocate, engaged in collecting materials for his Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, or, as his aunt described his pursuit, "running after the auld wives of the country gatherin' havers." He used frequently to read over by the fireside in the evening the results of his curious ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... merely a "jingle," it is rather, as Samuel Johnson said of all versification, a "joining music with reason." Its blending of decorative with structural purpose is in truth "a dictate of nature," or, to quote E. C. Stedman, "In real, that is, spontaneous minstrelsy, the fittest assonance, consonance, time, even rime,... come of ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... one 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 ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... would rather dwell a hermit In some silent peaceful wood, Where no voice of human being Ever breaks the solitude; Where babbling brook, and minstrelsy Of winged friends are heard To join the sylvan choruses Of leaves when gently stirred, Than live in costly splendor With a heartless, greedy throng, Whose only thought is sordid pelf Obtained by fraud ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... calm intent, Leaps to the honors of a tournament, And makes the gazers round about the ring Stare at the grandeur of the balancing? No, no! this is far off:—then how shall I Revive the dying tones of minstrelsy, Which linger yet about lone gothic arches, In dark green ivy, and among wild larches? How sing the splendour of the revelries, When buts of wine are drunk off to the lees? And that bright lance, against the fretted wall, Beneath the shade ...
— Poems 1817 • John Keats
... 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 claim, I'd there secure in rustic scroll The wayward fancies of the soul. Even ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... paced into the hall, Red as a rose is she; Nodding their heads before her goes 35 The merry minstrelsy. ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various
... 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
... chorus, which they continued to chaunt in 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 wonderful; ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... 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
... pictures high; Many a high hillside, While oaks of pride Climb to their tops, And boys run out upon their leafy ropes. The maple street In the houseless wood, Voices followed after, Every shrub and grape leaf Rang with fairy laughter. I have heard them fall Like the strain of all King Oberon's minstrelsy. Would hear the everlasting And know the only strong? You must worship fasting, You must listen long. Words of the air Which birds of the air Carry aloft, below, around, To the isles of the deep, To the snow-capped ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... term—one at once of praise and of reproach. The music is full of the spirit of a past world; but the feeling of that world is not got by the use of artificially archaic phrases or harmonies. Kothner's reading of the rules of correct minstrelsy is one of the exceptions, and the night-watchman's crying of the hour is another; but these, as Lamb said of Coleridge's philosophic preaching, are "only his fun." The melodies are often quite Weberesque in contour; the harmonies are either plain work-a-day ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... truth really lay between the two, for neither appreciated the wide variety covered by a common name' (The Mediaeval Stage, E. K. Chambers, 1903). See especially chapters iii. and iv. of this work for an admirably complete and illuminating account of minstrelsy.] ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick
... Alabama, in that state, the scenes were similar. There was always "a steady hum of laughter and talk, dance, song, shout, and the twang of musical instruments." It was "a scene full of life and fun, of jostling, scuffling, and racing, of clown performances and cake-walks, of impromptu minstrelsy, speech-making, and preaching, of deviling, guying, and fighting, both real and mimic." The colonel found great difficulty in getting men to work alone. Two would volunteer for any service. "Colonel," said ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... his mother's knee, A many-colour'd page before them spread, Gay summer harvest-field of gold and red, With lines and staves of ancient minstrelsy. But through her eyes alone the child can see, From her sweet lips partake the words of song, And looks as one who feels a hidden wrong, Or gazes on some feat of gramarye. 'When thou canst use it, thine the book!' she cried: He blush'd, and clasp'd it to his breast with pride:— 'Unkingly ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... 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 ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... His minstrelsy may be unchaste - 'Tis much unto that motley taste, And loud the laughter he provokes From those ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... 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 Third ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... sports or amusements wherewith a sorrowing maiden could be diverted; for the temper of England's Rulers was against vain pastimes and junketings. The Maypoles had been pulled down; the players whipped and banished; the bear and bull baitings, and even the mere harmless minstrelsy and ballad-singing of the streets, all rigorously pulled down. But whatever the worthy Turkey merchant and his household could do in the way of carrying Arabella about to suppers, christenings, country gatherings, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... be perfectly clear and perspicuous to the practised patterer of Romany, or Pedler's French. I have, moreover, been the first to introduce and naturalize amongst us a measure which, though common enough in the Argotic minstrelsy of France, has been hitherto utterly unknown to our pedestrian poetry." How mistaken Ainsworth was in his claim, thus ambiguously preferred, the present volume shows. Some years after the song ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... down the hill are far away; From the still valleys I can hear them call; Their distant laughter faintly floats Through the unmoving air and back to me. I am alone with the declining day And the declining forest where the notes Of all the happy minstrelsy, Birds and leaf-music and the rest, Sink separately in the hush of fall. The sun and clouds conflicting in the west Swirl into smoky light together and fade Under the unbroken shadow; Under the ...
— The Five Books of Youth • Robert Hillyer
... Sabbath morn, and how carefully I combed my hair and brushed my clothes in order that I might do credit to the Sabbath day. I thought of the old church at pretty D—-, the dignified rector, and yet more dignified clerk. I thought of England's grand Liturgy, and Tate and Brady's sonorous minstrelsy. I thought of the Holy Book, portions of which I was in the habit of reading between service. I thought, too, of the evening walk which I sometimes took in fine weather like the present, with my mother and brother—a quiet, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... vibration was in its midst of the violin's string, listen as he might. More than once he sought to assure himself that he heard it, but his fancy failed to respond to his bidding, although again and again he took up his position where it had before struck his ear. The wild minstrelsy of the woods felt no lack, and stream and wind and harping pine and vagrant bird lifted their voices in their wonted strains. He could hardly accept the fact; he would verify anew the landmarks he had made and again return to the spot, his hat in his hand, his ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... Pluto's hall To thee gave way, Grim Cerberus, round whose Gorgon head A hundred snakes are hissing death, Whose triple jaws black venom shed, And sickening breath. Ixion too and Tityos smooth'd Their rugged brows: the urn stood dry One hour, while Danaus' maids were sooth'd With minstrelsy. Let Lyde hear those maidens' guilt, Their famous doom, the ceaseless drain Of outpour'd water, ever spilt, And all the pain Reserved for sinners, e'en when dead: Those impious hands, (could crime do more?) Those impious hands ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... said, he dared to quaff, Though to the rest the sober berry's juice[208] The slaves bear round for rigid Moslems' use; 640 The long chibouque's[209] dissolving cloud supply, While dance the Almas[210] to wild minstrelsy. The rising morn will view the chiefs embark; But waves are somewhat treacherous in the dark: And revellers may more securely sleep On silken couch than o'er the rugged deep: Feast there who can—nor combat till ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... sweethearts and their wives. No 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
... way. Into the hall soothly she went; 185 Thomas followed at her hand; Then ladies came, both fair and gent, With courtesy to her kneeland[46]. Harp and fithel both they fand[47], Gittern and also the sawtery[48], 190 Lute and ribib[49] both gangand[50], And all manner of minstrelsy. The most marvel that Thomas thought, When that he stood upon the floor, For fifty hartes in were brought, 195 That were bothe great and store[51]. Raches lay lapping in the blood; Cookes came with dressing-knife; ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... upon us that in our holiest moments no less than when we are wayward and criminal, our trust for personal safety, and our only chance of blessing are from our exalted Daysman, who can lay his hand upon us both. Our praise would be unmeaning minstrelsy, our prayers a litany unheard and obsolete, all our devotional service a bootless trouble, but that "yonder the Intercessor stands and pours his all-prevailing prayer." It is "through Him we both," the Jews who crucified Him and the Gentiles, who by ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King
... the Lord of Love went by To take possession of his flowery throne, Ringed round with maids, and youths, and minstrelsy; A little while I sighed to find him gone, A little while the dawning was alone, And the light gathered; then I held my breath, And shuddered at the sight of ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... 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
... 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 ...
— Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants • William Pittman Lett
... 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 ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... 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 ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... lonely hermit of the hills, Whose song like some great organ note The whole horizon fills. Or the great Master, he whose magic hand, Wielding the wand from which such wonder flows, Transformed the lineaments of a rugged land, And left the thistle lovely as the rose. Oh! in a concert of such minstrelsy, In such a glorious company, What pride for Ireland's harp to sound, For Ireland's son to share, What pride to see him glory-crowned, And hear amid the dazzling gleam Upon the rapt and ravished air Her harp still ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... pigeon far in the gloom, the furtive scamper of scrub fowl among leaves made 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
... of 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 ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... blows: Green is their garden and orchard, with rare fruits golden it glows, And the souls of the Blessed are glad in the pleasures on Earth that they knew, And in chariots these have delight, and in dice and in minstrelsy those, And the savour of sacrifice clings to ...
— Rhymes a la Mode • Andrew Lang
... our June depression at home in Scotland. . . . The pipe is right again; it was the springs that had rusted, and ought to have been oiled. Its voice is now that of an angel; but, Lord! here in the club I dare not wake it! Conceive my impatience to be in my own backwoods and raise the sound of minstrelsy. What pleasures are to be compared with those of the Unvirtuous Virtuoso. - Yours ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... (Unanswered lest thou boast) to let thee know, At first I thought that Liberty and Heaven To heavenly souls had been all one; but now I see that most through sloth had rather serve, Ministring Spirits, trained up in feast and song! Such hast thou armed, the minstrelsy of Heaven, Servility with freedom to contend, As both their deeds compared this day shall prove. To whom in brief thus Abdiel stern replied. Apostate! still thou errest, nor end wilt find Of erring, ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... 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 ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... chord of a vesper melody, sounds above him! It is the whippoorwill—steadily, continuously, entrancingly the dulcet measure is taken up and echoed, until the slough of despond seems transformed into a varying diapason of melancholy minstrelsy. He dares not raise his head. It will vanish if he moves. He crouches, panting, almost exultant, in the sense of recovered faculties, or rather the suspension of numbing fear. How long will it last? He must move; his limbs are cramped and aching. He raises his head. Mortal powers! ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... of glorious joy was there: Harping and dancing, loud and fair, And minstrelsy that made of air Fire, so like fire its raptures were. Then the chief lady spake on high: "Knight with the two swords, one of two Must help you here or fall from you: For needs you now must have ado And ...
— The Tale of Balen • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... sing again the same refrain Upon the selfsame key, Till airs elate, reverberate, Heaven's sweetest minstrelsy. ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite |
