"Minstrelsy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... motionless in 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 ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... 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 ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... 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, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... thickset forest I hear a sound go free, Crashing the stately neighbours The pine and the cedar tree, Horns and harps and tabors, Drumming and harping and horning In savage minstrelsy— It wakes in my soul a warning ...
— Lundy's Lane and Other Poems • Duncan Campbell Scott
... 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, and it is a loss to ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... sound may be heard Save the soul-soothing strains of thy harmonist bird, For they seem on the soft wing of quiet to come, Like celestial melodies luring us home, Faint breathings from Heaven, to bid us prepare For peals of ethereal minstrelsy there. ...
— Heart Utterances at Various Periods of a Chequered Life. • Eliza Paul Kirkbride Gurney
... 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
... defiance raised by these Indians almost drowned the volume of sound from "the wild barbaric minstrelsy of shell, atabal, and trumpet with which they proclaimed their triumphant anticipations of victory over the paltry forces ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson
... 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 market had become overstocked ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... slain. Thus old Martin was left with the Flemish wife and her little one on his hands, for whose sake he did what went against him sorely, joined himself to this troop of jugglers and players, so as to live by the minstrelsy he had learnt in better days, while his daughter-in-law mended and made for the company and kept them in smart and shining trim. By the time I fell in with them his voice was well-nigh gone, and his hand sorely shaking, but Fire-eating Nat, ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... very young men who, for the price of a ticket, a cigar, and a glass of beer, purchase the flattering delusion that they are "seeing life," and "going it with a perfect looseness." The performances consist of Ethiopian minstrelsy, comic songs, farces, and the dancing of "beauteous Terpsichorean nymphs"; and these succeed one another with not a minute's intermission for three or four hours. At St. Louis, where gentlemen connected with navigation are numerous, the Varieties ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... found in ad captandum designations, he terms himself, and is termed by the wide circle of his admirers; for Jasmin's songs and rural epics are written in the patois of the people, and that patois is the still almost unaltered Langue d'Oc—the tongue of the chivalric minstrelsy of yore. ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... 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 part ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... 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 ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith
... He must interest him in the cause of knowledge; which is the people's cause. With this determination, he proceeds once more to the appointed presence. His minstrelsy is at first a failure. He is, as usual, outside his song. He is trying to guide it; it is not carrying him away. He is paralysed by the very consciousness that he is urging the head of the Ghibellines to become ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... modern minstrelsy shows how very dangerous it is to write even on the English poetry of the day. Eighteen is long odds against a single critic, and Major Bellenden, in "Old Mortality," tells us that three to one are odds as long as ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang
... residence 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 ...
— The Story of Troy • Michael Clarke
... 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?" ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... 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
... 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
... quarters as the genuine article of Hawaiian song. Even now, the people of northwestern America are listening with demonstrative interest to songs which they suppose to be those of the old hula, but which in reality have no more connection with that institution than our negro minstrelsy has to do with the ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... much at my ease, and fare sumptuously every day. As for poetry, I have given it up, notwithstanding that Dr. Griswold—as the reader, of course, knows—has placed me at a fair elevation among our minor minstrelsy, on the strength of my pretty little volume, published ten years ago. As regards human progress (in spite of my irrepressible yearnings over the Blithedale reminiscences), let them believe in it who can, and aid in it ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... early years were pass'd far on The hills of Ettrick wild and lone; Through summer sheen and winter shade Tending the flocks that o'er them stray'd. In bold enthusiastic glee I sung rude strains of minstrelsy, Which mingling with died o'er the dale, Unheeded as the plover's wail. Oft where the waving rushes shed A shelter frail around my head, Weening, though not through hopes of fame, To fix on these more lasting claim, I'd there secure in rustic scroll The wayward fancies of ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... Fairy Stories. Down the Palace stairs they come, group after group, until the Stage, even of Old Drury, can hold no more, and there is scarcely room for them all to move, much less to indulge in any "kicking up ahind and afore," as was the wont of the Ancient JOSEPH, whose fame is hymned in Nigger Minstrelsy. A most brilliant scene, never to be forgotten!—that is, until next Pantomime Season, when Sir DRURIOLANUS will, in all probability, show us something equally magnificent, and as perfect ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 7, 1893 • Various
... 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, that keeps the neat, With breath more sweet than violet. There, there, ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... Forbidden draughts, 'tis 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 less to conquest than to Korans trust; And yet the numbers ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... the prevailing force, 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 ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... contented men, rejoicing over the abundance which rewarded the labor of the closing year! And the listening, too, has many a time and oft filled my bosom with emotions, and opened my heart with charity and love toward this subject and dependent race, such as no oratory, no rhetoric or minstrelsy in all this wide earth ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... as the tones of a well-touched harp: sad were they—luxuriously sad; and their unearthly melody infused into my bosom a repose unknown to mortality. As I listened with awe and rapture to that delicate minstrelsy, I seemed to become all soul; tears—far indeed from tears of sorrow—suffused my wondering eyes, and my heart, in the delirium of gratitude, raised itself in solemn ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 480, Saturday, March 12, 1831 • Various
... 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 ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... From minstrelsy's melee, Its foam and its surge, A Keats or a Shelley May haply emerge; Or there may be a Tupper To leaven the lot— Some bards are immortal ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 12, 1917 • Various
... 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
... And, but 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, he ...
— The Emigrant - or Reflections While Descending the Ohio • Frederick William Thomas
... above on Ilion's rock: "Up, up, O fear is over now! To Pallas, who hath saved us living, To Pallas bear this victory-vow!" Then rose the old man from his room, The merry damsel left her loom, And each bound death about his brow With minstrelsy ...
— The Trojan women of Euripides • Euripides
... 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 ...
— An anthology of German literature • Calvin Thomas
... 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
... 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 dream—as meaningless ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 457 - Volume 18, New Series, October 2, 1852 • Various
... so were poetry and romance fostered by the open and joyous hospitalities of the baronial hall. The castle door was always open to the wandering singer and story-teller, and it was amidst the scenes of festivity within that the ballads and romances of mediaeval minstrelsy ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... 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 they did it before her, ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne
... 'Good-morning, Mr. Dangerfield.' Puddock also saluted, still thrumming a low chord or two as he did so, for he was not ashamed, like his stout playmate, and saw nothing incongruous in their early minstrelsy. ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... and he was skilled in all the learned lore of the time, wrote poetry, composed music both sacred and profane, and was a complete minstrel, able to sing beautifully and to play on the harp and organ. His queen, the beautiful Joan Beaufort, had been the lady of his minstrelsy in the days of his captivity, ever since he had watched her walking on the slopes of Windsor Park, and wooed her in verses that are still preserved. They had now been eleven years married, and their court was one bright spot of civilization, refinement, and grace, amid the savagery ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... 1545 (Toxophilus, p. 29) '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 ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... Maitland especially, and in some other cases, without the kind and ungrudging aid, freely given to a stranger, of Mr. William Macmath, whose knowledge of ballad-lore, and especially of the ballad manuscripts at Abbotsford, is unrivalled. As to Auld Maitland, Mr. T. F. Henderson, in his edition of the Minstrelsy (Blackwood, 1892), also made due use of Hogg's MS., and his edition is most valuable to every student of Scott's method of editing, being based on the Abbotsford MSS. Mr. Henderson suspects, more than I do, ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang
... in 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 all of my ...
— Just Folks • Edgar A. Guest
... of Neuilly has been enlivened sometimes by the sound of the Bearnese minstrelsy; and, on one occasion, listened to a band of mountaineers from Luchon, who undertook, a few years since, a journey through Europe, singing their choruses in all the principal cities. On hearing the above song ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... 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 ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... were influenced by their Moorish conquerors with regard to music, minstrelsy, and dancing is certain. The origin of such movements as the Saraband, the Morisca (or Morris dance), and the Chaconne,[10] has been traced to the East. That such dances should have been accompanied by instruments of Eastern origin ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... 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 commonly regarded ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... those celebrated bards who preserved in their traditionary strains the memory of great events, the praises of the gods, the glory of warriors, and the laws and customs of their countrymen. Intrusted, like the Grecian heroic minstrelsy, to oral recitation, it was not until the propitious reign of Charlemagne that these verses were collected. But, through the bigotry of his successor or the ravages of time, not a fragment of this collection remains. We are enabled, however, ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... I'm come! like a seraph's sigh Breath'd to ethereal minstrelsy, And well ye'll deem what a sigh must be From the tearless ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 334 Saturday, October 4, 1828 • Various
... songs to this ruffian crew, whom he hated, even in his dreams, till the foam flew from his mouth while he slept; yet at last I prevailed upon him to master his feelings, and make them subservient to his interests. For so delighted, even with the rudest minstrelsy, are sailors, that I well knew Harry possessed a spell over them, which, for the time at least, they could not resist; and it might induce them to treat with more deference the being who was capable of yielding them such delight. Carlo's organ they did not so much care for; but the voice of my ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... and fly, Serve us for our minstrelsy; Grace said, we dance a while, And so the time beguile; And if the moon doth hide her head, The glow-worm lights us ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... 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, I trow.' ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... he cut the head off MacLellan of 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 ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... Lochaber axe, given him by old Invernahyle, mounted guard on a little print of Prince Charlie; and Broughton's Saucer was hooked up on the wall below it." He had entered literature through the ruined gateway of archleology, in the "Border Minstrelsy," and his last project was an edition of Perrault's "Contes de Ma Mere l'Oie." As pleasant to him as the purchase of new lands like Turn Again, bought dearly, as in Monkbarns's case, from "bonnet lauds," was a fresh ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... wholly confined to the amautas. It was assumed in part by the haravecs, or poets, who selected the most brilliant incidents for their songs or ballads, which were chanted at the royal festivals and at the table of the Inca.8 In this manner, a body of traditional minstrelsy grew up, like the British and Spanish ballad poetry, by means of which the name of many a rude chieftain, that might have perished for want of a chronicler, has been borne down the tide of rustic ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... "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 graceful ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... Enius is despatched even with more succinctness, but in Montalvan's 'Vida y Purgatorio de San Patricio', all his early crimes are detailed nearly in the order and almost in the very words that Calderon has used. Sir Walter Scott mentions, in his Border Minstrelsy, that there is a curious MS. Metrical Romance, in the Advocates' Library of Edinburgh, called, "The Legend of Sir Owain," relating his adventures in St. Patrick's Purgatory; he gives some stanzas from it, descriptive ...
— The Purgatory of St. Patrick • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... by time's 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— ...
— Enthusiasm and Other Poems • Susanna Moodie
... just beyond the Border in Scotland, in that region of romantic and poetical traditions, full of the charm of early legendary and ballad lore, of the associations of Burns's songs and Scott's Border minstrelsy, pervaded with the old superstitions, half-beliefs, dating from as far back as the days of Thomas the Rhymer, and the later powerful influence of the Wizard of the North, the mighty master-magician ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... steadily rising from day to day. The third was a man whose political life has long since been forgotten, but whose name is well remembered because of his success in quite a different field—Winthrop Mackworth Praed, the charming author of delightful verses, the founder of that English school of minstrelsy which sings for the drawing-room and the club-room, the feasts and the fashions, the joys and the well-ordered troubles of the West-End. Sidney Herbert and Praed were made joint Secretaries to the Board of Control, the department ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... touched by words, doth turn Wan ashes. Still, from memory's urn, The lingering blossoms tenderly Refute our wilding minstrelsy. Alas! we work but beauty's wrong! The dream ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson
... 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 called ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... 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
... 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 ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... a 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 in wait ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... 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 ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... evening late, by then the chewing flocks Had ta'en their supper 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 respite to the drowsy-flighted steeds ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton
... proudest of the proud was he, Yet, trained in camps, he knew the art To win the soldier's hardy heart. They love a captain to obey, Boisterous as March, yet fresh as May; With open hand, and brow as free, Lover of wine and minstrelsy; Ever the first to scale a tower, As venturous in a lady's bower: Such buxom chief shall lead his host From ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... in 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 seems ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... is whooping anon, anon," &c. &c. is in the same exquisite measure. This appears to us neither more nor less than an imitation of such minstrelsy as soothed our cries in the cradle, with the ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... so wee Had daughters twice two, And a little son too, Called Phil.—Fiddle-dee! Come, foxy, and see My sweet minstrelsy!" ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous
... wide earth echoing rung To their strange minstrelsy, The little glittering spirits sung, Or seemed to ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... It has no results. The reader rises up from the perusal with new images and associations, but he remains the same man that he was before. A great mind is one that moulds the minds of others. Mr. Scott has put the Border Minstrelsy and scattered traditions of the country into easy, animated verse. But the Notes to his poems are just as entertaining as the poems themselves, and his ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt |
