"Minstrelsy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... 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 all foreground, without perspective. Even the crusaders, who travelled so ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... it has nought to 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 ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... thee I'd tune the lyre; Might minstrelsy my song inspire; Could I a gifted offering bring, I'd boldly sweep each silken string, And wake a sweet and thrilling strain, Thy ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... fact, a contralto solo divided into 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
... Middle Ages better than they knew 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 their ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... music 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 ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... with bow and arrow that would not have disgraced the best men-at-arms of Maisonforte—here again, later in the day, was minstrelsy of a higher order than his father's ears had cared for, but of which his mother had ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of the subject is so interesting that we feel tempted to linger over it, but it is sufficient for our purpose to observe that minstrelsy, before and after the Conquest —indeed, up to nearly the end of the manuscript period— was the chief and almost the only means of circulating literature among seculars. This fact should be borne ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage
... 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
... has it hewn." So the weapon was hung up on high that all might look upon it, and "by true title thereof tell the wonder." Then all the knights hastened to their seats at the table, so did the king and our good knight, and they were there served with all dainties, "with all manner of meat and minstrelsy." ...
— Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight - An Alliterative Romance-Poem (c. 1360 A.D.) • Anonymous
... the flame of the open grate, All that is good in the past I see: Red-lipped youth on the swinging gate, Bright-eyed youth with its minstrelsy; Girls and boys that I used to know, Back in the days of Long Ago, Troop before in the smoke and flame, Chatter and sing, as the wild birds do. Everyone I can call by name, For the fire builds ...
— Just Folks • Edgar A. Guest
... and there is another response when he brings before us pictures of regal grief, and gives grandeur to humiliation and penalty. Nor is it only in the higher walks of tragedy, with its pomp and circumstances of action, that the poet here serves us. His humbler minstrelsy has soothed many an English heart from the tale of "Lycidas" to the elegiac verse of Tennyson. George Herbert still speaks to this generation as two centuries ago he spoke to his own. His quaint verses gather new beauties from time as they come to us redolent with ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... a translation of "Goetz von 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 after the romance of "Waverley," published anonymously ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... 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 up from boyhood at the Austrian mission, and he is a genuine specimen of the ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... Stone, had gained him in the neighbourhood the reputation, still possible in Scotland, of a local bard; and, though not printed himself, he was recognised by others who were and who had become famous. Walter Scott owed to Dandie the text of the "Raid of Wearie" in the MINSTRELSY; and made him welcome at his house, and appreciated his talents, such as they were, with all his usual generosity. The Ettrick Shepherd was his sworn crony; they would meet, drink to excess, roar out ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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 ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... 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 ...
— Beowulf • James A. Harrison and Robert Sharp, eds.
... as his back was toward me, I could only hear the deep growling tones of his voice, like the low breathing of an organ, without distinguishing the words, until pausing, and turning his face toward me, I found he was reciting some scrap of border minstrelsy about Thomas the Rhymer. This was continually the case in my ramblings with him about this storied neighborhood. His mind was fraught with the traditionary fictions connected with every object around him, and he would breathe it forth as he went, ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... principal gods was on the top of Mount O-lym'pus, in Greece. Here they had golden palaces and a chamber where they held grand banquets at which celestial music was rendered by A-pol'lo, the god of minstrelsy, and the Muses, who were the ...
— Story of Aeneas • Michael Clarke
... in his notes to the 'Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border,' says that the common people of the high parts of Liddlesdale and the country adjacent to this day hold the memory of Johnnie Armstrong ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... are 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 red ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... And now there comes, and spreads through all my soul. Delicious influx of another life, From out whose essence spring, like living flowers, Angelic senses with quick ultimates, That catch the rustle of ethereal robes, And the thin chime of melting minstrelsy— Rising and falling—answered far away— As Echo, dreaming in the twilight woods, Repeats the warble of her twilight birds. And flowers that mock the Iris toss their cups In the impulsive ether, and spill out Sweet tides of perfume, fragrant deluges, Flooding my ...
— Bitter-Sweet • J. G. Holland
... 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 they did it before ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne
... melancholy of them. When Sheila, sitting by herself, would sing these strange old ballads of an evening, he would suddenly enter the room, probably find her eyes filled with tears, and then he would in his inmost heart devote the whole of Gaelic minstrelsy and all its authors to the infernal gods. Why should people be for ever saddening themselves with the stories of other folks' misfortunes? It was bad enough for those poor people, but they had borne their sorrows and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... 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
... 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
... 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 ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... 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, ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... indefinitely extended had not unusual sounds of mirth and minstrelsy coming from ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... was, had in it that warlike character which at any other time would have roused Halbert's spirit; but at present the charm of minstrelsy had no effect upon him. He made it his request to Christie to suffer him to retire to rest, a request with which that worthy person, seeing no chance of making a favourable impression on his intended proselyte ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... be forthcoming, father," said Henry Smith, "though the blast of the bellows and the clatter of the anvil make but coarse company to lays of minstrelsy; but I can afford them no better, since I must mend my fortune, though ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... from the Mighty Warden fledst; and now, The fugitive of Fate, Thou farest in our life as in a dream, Still wandering with thy lute, Like that sweet paynim lady of old song, Who sang and wandered long, For love of her Aucassin, seeking him! So with thy minstrelsy Thou roamest, dreaming of the country dim, Below the ...
— Grass of Parnassus • Andrew Lang
... 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 ...
— The Story of Troy • Michael Clarke
... 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 ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... when his spirit, with more 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, ...
— Poems 1817 • John Keats
... 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 carnal ...
— Wagner • John F. Runciman
... 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, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... 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 head bent low, ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... of the pump is strangely stilled; The smoke-house door bangs once emphatic'ly, Then bangs no more, but leaves the silence filled With one lorn plaint's despotic minstrelsy. ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... "Puritan elder, speak!" "Yea, friend, peradventure thou mayest seek Recreation singing a psalm." If I did, your visage so grim and stern Would relax in a ghastly smile, For of music I never one note could learn, And my feeble minstrelsy would turn Your chant to ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... 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
... 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 sphere ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith
... 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 ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... league with Vice and Shame, And lending all her light to gild a lie; Crowning with laureate-wreaths an impious name, Or lulling us with Siren minstrelsy To false repose when peril most is nigh; Decking things vile or vain with colours rare, Till what is false and foul ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... the 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 ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... there was feasting in the mighty, immemorial halls, and singing and minstrelsy and the dancing of fair women and the giving of gifts. For Baalbec, where birth and beauty were ever welcome, did honour to its lady, the favoured niece of the mighty Salah-ed-din. Yet there were some who murmured that she would ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... 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 ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... 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
... 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, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... my dainty 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 ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... Besides the natural anxiety of a civilized community to read, in preference to cheap rural poetry, verses paid for at the rate of 'a guinea a word,' or at the least 'five shillings a syllable,' there were many notable matters directing public attention away from village minstrelsy to other things. The book was brought out in the same month that the 'injured Queen of England' died; that the populace fought for the honour of participating in the funeral; and that royal lifeguardsmen killed the ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... they had supped royally upon the very hart that Marian had slain, Allan sang sweet songs of Northern minstrelsy to the fair guest as she sat by Robin's side, the golden arrow gleaming in her dark hair. The others all joined in the chorus, from Will Scarlet's baritone to Friar Tuck's heavy bass. Even Little John essayed to sing, although looked at threateningly ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... 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! No ...
— Poems • Samuel Rogers
... 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
... ages ere we breathed 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 ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 493, June 11, 1831 • Various
... 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... 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 ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... 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 ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... department of the Gaelic Minstrelsy admired by Scott and condemned by Macpherson, the English reader is presented in the present work with specimens, to enable him to form his own judgment. These specimens, it must however be remembered, not only labour ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... line 11.—"Oh! for a single hour of that Dundee." See an anecdote related in Mr. Scott's Border Minstrelsy. ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 1 • William Wordsworth
... warriors, and that, being banished from Hettel's court, they had been forced to take up their present occupation to make a living. To prove the truth of their assertions, Wat exhibited his skill in athletic sports, while Horant delighted all the ladies by his proficiency in the art of minstrelsy. ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... 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
... 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 that he has sung less at one period of the year than ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... mandolin's mild minstrelsy, My mental music magazine, My mouth, my mind, my memory, Must ...
— English as She is Wrote - Showing Curious Ways in which the English Language may be - made to Convey Ideas or obscure them. • Anonymous
... 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." But to my soul thus steeped in joy the ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... the bloody Earl of Douglas said to keep the king's messenger in hand while he cut the head off MacLellan of Bombie, at the Threave Castle; and put Steenie mair and mair on his guard. So he spoke up like a man, and said he came neither to eat nor drink, nor 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's sake (he had ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various
... the property, following to the southwest the many windings of the Belle Borne streamlet. This sylvan region most congenial to the tastes of a naturalist, echoes in spring and summer with the ever-varying and wild minstrelsy of the robin, the veery, the songsparrow, the red-start, the hermit-thrush, the red-eyed flycatcher and other feathered choristers, while the golden-winged woodpecker or rain fowl, heralds at dawn the coming rain of the morrow, and some crows, rendered saucy by protection, strut ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... conquest." Reynard thanked them all kindly, and received their congratulations with great joy and gladness. And, the marshals going before, they went all to the King, guarding the fox on every side, all the trumpets, pipes, and minstrelsy sounding before him. ...
— The Comical Creatures from Wurtemberg - Second Edition • Unknown
... Percy. The text I give is, with some few variants, that of the vastly better version in The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1802-3). Of the 'history' of the ballad the less said the better. The argument is neatly summarised by Mr. Allingham, p. 376 of The Ballad ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... most graciously the homage of the Herculean porter, and, bending her head to him in requital, passed through his guarded tower, from the top of which was poured a clamorous blast of warlike music, which was replied to by other bands of minstrelsy placed at different points on the Castle walls, and by others again stationed in the Chase; while the tones of the one, as they yet vibrated on the echoes, were caught up and answered by new harmony from ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... 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 ...
— The Mountain Spring And Other Poems • Nannie R. Glass
... 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 ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... Italian lady of some rank, denationalizing 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
... 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, and agreed to change their names. They ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... love, 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
... 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 in chase ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... with their 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
... romance,—these are the three great literary ideals which find expression in the metrical romances. Read these romances now, with their knights and fair ladies, their perilous adventures and tender love-making, their minstrelsy and tournaments and gorgeous cavalcades,—as if humanity were on parade, and life itself were one tumultuous holiday in the open air,—and you have an epitome of the whole childish, credulous soul of the ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... 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, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... 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
... some sadly dying note, Upon this silent hour to float, Where, from the bustling world remote, The lyre might wake its melody! One feeble strain is all can swell. From mine almost deserted shell, In mournful accents yet to tell That slumbers not its minstrelsy. ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... 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; But axcusing silver- ...
— Peacock Pie, A Book of Rhymes • Walter de la Mare
... festival followed, with jousting and minstrelsy. Isoult sat in a green silk bower, clothed all in white, her black hair twisted with pearls, a crown of red roses upon all. The hooded falcon showed again on baldrick and girdle, the fesse dancettee flickered on a new shield, the red ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... fairy train appear'd in order bright: Adown the glitt'ring stream they featly danc'd; Bright to the moon their various dresses glanc'd: They footed owre the wat'ry glass so neat, The infant ice scarce bent beneath their feet: While arts of minstrelsy among them rung, And soul-ennobling bards heroic ditties sung.— O had M'Lauchlan,[67] thairm-inspiring Sage, Been there to hear this heavenly band engage, When thro' his dear strathspeys they bore with highland rage; Or when they struck old Scotia's melting airs, The lover's raptur'd joys or bleeding ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... still merry England in the times of good Queen Bess, and rang with old songs, such as kept this milkmaid company; songs, said Bishop Joseph Hall, which were "sung to the wheel and sung unto the pail." Shakspere loved their simple minstrelsy; he put some of them into the mouth of Ophelia, and scattered snatches of {94} them through his plays, and wrote others ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... Charley, I miss you greatly. Your second in a ballad is not to be replaced; besides, Carlisle Bridge has got low; medical students and young attorneys affect minstrelsy, and actually frequent the haunts sacred to ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... 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 ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... 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 ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang
... fox-sparrow, sojourned a few weeks, favoring all listeners with their sweet and simple melodies; but the chief musician of the American forests, the hermit thrush, passed silently, and would not deign to utter a note of his unrivalled minstrelsy until he had reached his remote haunts at the North. Dr. Marvin evidently had a grudge against this shy, distant bird, and often complained, "Why can't he give us a song or two as he lingers here ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... unless To amble 'long the street; no paces mind, Except my own, to walk the drawing-room, Or in the ball-room to come off with grace; No leap for me, to match the light coupe; No music like the violin and harp, To which the huntsman's dog and horn I find Are somewhat coarse and homely minstrelsy: Then fields of ill-dressed rustics, you'll confess, Are well exchanged for rooms of beaux and belles In short, I've ta'en another thought of ...
— The Love-Chase • James Sheridan Knowles
... France, went on principally in the south. The lands of Aquitaine and Provence had never dropped the old classical love of poetry and art. A softer form of broken Latin was then spoken, and the art of minstrelsy was frequent among all ranks. Poets were called troubadours and trouveres (finders). Courts of love were held, where there were competitions in poetry, the prize being a golden violet; and many of the bravest warriors ...
— History of France • Charlotte M. Yonge
... relinquished, with his redondillas and artless asonantes, the homely, but heartful themes of the olden time; or, if he dwelt on them, it was with an air of studied elegance and precision, very remote from the Doric simplicity and freshness of the romantic minstrelsy. If he aspired to some bolder theme, it was rarely suggested by the stirring and patriotic recollections of his nation's history. Thus, nature and the rude graces of a primitive age gave way to superior refinement and lettered elegance; many popular ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... wind-sprites murmuring 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
... of Pylos and Arene, and Thryum where is the ford of the river Alpheus; strong Aipy, Cyparisseis, and Amphigenea; Pteleum, Helos, and Dorium, where the Muses met Thamyris, and stilled his minstrelsy for ever. He was returning from Oechalia, where Eurytus lived and reigned, and boasted that he would surpass even the Muses, daughters of aegis-bearing Jove, if they should sing against him; whereon they were angry, and maimed him. They robbed him of his divine ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... 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 ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... Louis de Marmontier, the third of our trio of pages. He had distinguished himself that day in the lists, following closely in the steps of Etienne, and now he seemed likely to win the prize for minstrelsy, as he sang the song of Rollo, accompanying himself with thrilling chords on the harp, whose strings had never ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... from our own river, and from Paparoa and Matakohe besides. There were people, too, from the Wairoa settlements, from the Oruawharo, even from Maungaturoto and distant Mangawai. Our hearts sunk into our boots when we saw the prodigious audience that was assembling to hear our crude attempts at minstrelsy. ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... 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
... admonition, the passionate attachment to the melody of sound, inspired by her mother's voice—almost imbibed at her mother's breast—lived through all neglect, and survived all opposition. It found its nourishment in childish recollections, in snatches of street minstrelsy heard through her window, in the passage of the night winds of winter through the groves on the Pincian Mount, and received its rapturous gratification in the first audible sounds from the Roman senator's lute. How her possession of an instrument, and her skill in playing, ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... surface the marks of circles, which sometimes appear yellow and blasted, sometimes of a deep green hue, and within which it is dangerous to sleep, or to be found after sunset. Cattle which are suddenly seized with the cramp, or some similar disorder, are said to be elf-shot. (Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border; ...
— The Younger Edda - Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda • Snorre
... 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 ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... the prismatic angles, sharp as though chiseled by a sculptor's hand; the same sonorous vibration of the air across the basaltic rocks, of which the Gaelic poets have feigned that the harps of the Fingal minstrelsy were made. But whereas at Staffa the floor of the cave is always covered with a sheet of water, here the grotto was beyond the reach of all but the highest waves, while the prismatic shafts them- selves formed quite ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... anthologies are multiplying, not "Keepsakes" and "Books of Gems," but thick volumes representing the bumper crop of the year. Many poets are reciting their poems to big, eager, enthusiastic audiences, and the atmosphere is charged with the melodies of ubiquitous minstrelsy. ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... 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 ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... 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 they must, And ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... 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; such ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... when in those very groves, 70 The feathered choristers salute the spring, And every bush in concert joins; or when The master's hand, in modulated air, Bids the loud organ breathe, and all the powers Of music in one instrument combine, An universal minstrelsy. And now In vain each earth he tries, the doors are barred Impregnable, nor is the covert safe; He pants for purer air. Hark! what loud shouts Re-echo through the groves! he breaks away, 80 Shrill horns proclaim his flight. Each straggling hound Strains o'er the lawn to reach the distant ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... 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 a ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 457 - Volume 18, New Series, October 2, 1852 • Various
... odors of the pine trees, wafted by the land-breeze, seemed like incense mingling with their orisons, and the carols of the birds were in accordance with their matin-hymn of praise. This second reference to the minstrelsy of the grove, will not be wondered at by those who have visited that region in the spring of the year. The various notes of the feathered choristers are enchanting, even now, when the din of population has frightened them into coverts. ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris |
