minstrel quotes

A wandering minstrel I A thing of shreds and patches Of ballads, songs and snatches And dreamy lullaby!

- Sir W(illiam) S(chwenck) Gilbert
  Nanki-Poo's song, The Mikado, act1.

The way was long, the wind was cold, The Minstrel was infirm and old; His withered cheek, and tresses grey, Seemed to have known a better day; The harp, his sole remaining joy, Was carried byan orphan boy, The last of all the Bards was he, Who sung of Border chivalry.

- Sir Walter Scott
  The Lay of the Last Minstrel, introduction.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin, The faithless coldness of the times; Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes, But ring the fuller minstrel in. Ring out false pride in place and blood, The civic slander and the spite; Ring in the love of truth and right, Ring in the common love of good. Ring out old shapes of foul disease; Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace. Ring in the valiant man and free, The larger heart, the kindlier hand; Ring out the darkness of the land; 844 Ring in the Christ that is to be.

-Tennyson
  In Memoriam A.H.H., canto106, l.17^32.

Ethereal minstrel! pilgrim of the sky! Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound? Or, while the wings aspire, are heart and eye Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground?

-William Wordsworth
  'To a Skylark', l.1^4 (published1827).