Glee

“ While I claim the god of glee.
Wisdom wearies, Love has wings -
Wealth makes burdens, Pleasure stings,
Glory proves a thorny crown -
So all gifts the gods throw down
Bring their pains and troubles after ”

“ SERIOUS GLEE, ‘The parted Spirit,’ for four voices, which gained the prize at the Gentlemen’s Glee Club, Manchester, in 1831; the words by JOHN MALCOLM, Esq.; the music by FINLAY DUN, of Edinburgh. (Mori and Lavenu.) SERENADE, ‘Lady of Beauty,’ for three voices, by H. GIFFIN. (Brown.)
MR. FINLAY DUN’s glee is rather a successful study than work of genius;—it exhibits more signs of persevering labour than of flights of imagination. And such is the character of some of the best compositions of this kind to which the last quarter of a century has given birth. ”

“ At the beginning of the seventeenth century the madrigal, properly so called, disappeared from amongst the compositions of both English and foreign musicians. The word glee is the Anglo-Saxon “gligg”—music, and has no special reference to joyfulness; in fact, it is as common to find the title “serious glee,” as it is to see “cheerful glee.” A glee is unaccompanied, and is written for at least three solo voices, most frequently men. ”

“ He was the composer of 'A Collection of five Glees and one Madrigal,' and 'Six Glees for three and four voices'; and the arranger of 'Six Scotch Songs, harmonized as Glees.' His glee, 'The bee, the golden daughter of the spring,' gained the prize given by the Glee Club on its 5Oth anniversary in April 1836. ”

“ The convivial character of the glee led, in the 18th century, to the formation of various societies, which offered prizes and medals for the best compositions of the kind and assembled for social and artistic purposes. ”

“ The boat went cutting through the tide-waves and dashing the spray over her bows, the wide sea was opening all around them,—the salt wind stung his brain to keener life. To what horrid fate were they hurrying, she alone with this maniacal man? Out there beyond, away and away, the mighty billows tossed in their cruel glee, silvered their crests and horns in the moonlight, and grew and disappeared like phantoms. ”

“ So many, and so many, and such glee? ”

“ Indeed the short phrases, incessant cadences, frequent changes of rhythm and pace of the average glee, contrast unfavourably with the 'long resounding' phrases of the madrigal, never brought to an end in one part till they are begun in another, overlapping one another, bearing one another up, and never allowing the hearer to anticipate a close till everything that can be done with every subject has been done, and the movement comes to a natural end. ”

“ The minstrels lost no opportunity of doing honour to their art.
(3) As for the word glees, it is to this day used in a musical sense, and applied to a peculiar piece of composition. Who has not seen the advertisements, proposing a reward to him who should produce the best catch, canon, or glee?
[K] [Comes from the pen of Geoffrey of Monmouth.] Geoffrey's own words are: "Cum ergo alterius modi aditum [Baldulphus] non haberet, rasit capillos suos et barbam, [1117] cultumque joculatoris cum cythara fecit. ”

“ Ye are given to us as faithful companions 'mid life's joy and sternness! At the child's first griefs on its faithful mother's breast, ye already penetrate the little heart, and turn the grief to gladness. ”

“ Strange that grief, and laments, and the humble petition of repentance, should fill us with delight—a delight that awakens these very emotions in the heart—and calls tears into the eyes, and yet which is dearer than any pleasure. ”

“ Gloom Do you feel sorrowful? I sometimes do,
When busy thought tells me the sufferings
Of some in our south land. Their brows are not
So fair as thine, by much, but yet they are
Our sisters, for the mighty God hath given
To them the boon of an immortal soul. ”

“ As tears are sometimes the gentle dew that falls upon and refreshes the drooping flowers of life, so prayer is the concentration of the golden rays of light that color and beautify the re-animated [272] petals, sending into the heart once filled with desolation and despair the freshness of a new life, and driving out the dying fumes that arise from the withered flowers where fond hopes lie buried. Softly came this gentle influence into the soul of her who under the shadows was kneeling and praying! ”

“ And into her strange orbs there came that same look of tenderness that once before had made them as a mother's watching the gambols of her babe.
"There, there," she said. "You would swear them and hug your chains of roses—but because they were chains they would turn heavy as lead. Make no vows, sweetheart! Fate will force you to break them if you do, and then the gods are angry and misfortune follows. Swear none, and that fickle one will keep you passionate, in hopes always to lure you into her pitfalls—to vow and to break—pain and regret. Live, live, Paul, and love, and swear nothing at all." ”

“ He burst in prayers confused and sweet,
Prayers always sealed with many a tear.
Just as the pure heart of a maid
In secret often overflows,
At each domestic cloud or shade,
At each small joy his tears arose. ”

“ Ay, balmy as the bliss breathing from virgin lips, when, moving in the beauty left by her morning prayers, a glad fond daughter steals towards him on the feet of light, and as his arms open to receive and return the blessing, lays her innocence with smiles that are almost tears, within her father's bosom. ”

“ They are weeping, we are sure,
At the litanies of human groans ascending
From the crushed hearts of the poor.
III.
When the human rests in love upon the human,
All grief is light;
But who bends one kind glance to illumine
Our life-long night?
The air around is ringing with their laughter—
God has only made the rich to smile;
But we—in our rags, and want, and woe—we follow after,
Weeping the while.
IV.
And the laughter seems but uttered to deride us. ”

“ The harmony of her voice was as powerful as the animation of her look. In grief or tenderness her eyes looked as if they were in tears ; in rage and despair they seemed to dart flashes of fire. In spite of the unimportance of her figure she maintained a dignity in her action and a grace in her step. ”

“ For pansies are, I think, the little gleams Of children's visions from a world of dreams, Jewels of innocence and joy and mirth, Alight with laughter as they fall to earth. Below, the ancient guardian, it may hap, The kindly mother, takes them in her lap, Decks them with glowing petals and replaces In the glad air the friendly pansy-faces. ”

“ A sense of unspoken, unspeakable happiness flowed into the boy’s warm heart, and if at the same moment his eyes were suffused with tears, they were the tears that always spring up when the fountain of the heart is stirred by any strong emotion to its inmost depths—the tears that come even in laughter to show that our very pleasures have their own alloy. ”

“ Grant me the shade of thy wings, O Death, for I would rest within.
Weary of smiling faces when the heart is like to break.
Of lips that are too silent when they long the while to speak,
Of tears that fall from eyes too young, of quivering lips that laugh. ”

“ Beside those children's grave, song dies;
Hush! Poet! — Priest! Prayer hath a wing
To pass the stars and reach the skies;
Sweet children! from the land of light
Look down and bless my heart to-night.
Reverie ["We laugh when our souls are the saddest,"]
We laugh when our souls are the saddest,
We shroud all our griefs in a smile;
Our voices may warble their gladdest,
And our souls mourn in anguish the while.
And our eyes wear a summer's bright glory,
When winter is wailing beneath;
And we tell not the world the sad story
Of the thorn hidden back of the wreath. ”

“ Dost thou the never-fading crown
Of life and joy intend to win,
By here supinely sitting down,
Where others but the race begin?
And dost thou think to gain the palm
By hiding from thy Saviour’s foes;
Or hope in Gilead’s sacred balm
A cure for self-inflicted woes?
I never saw a Nun before;
And therefore claim indulgence now,
If I presume to question more
Than courtesy might, else, allow:
As one, then, who in darkness pleads,
For light, I ask to be informed
How, by a string of pegs and beads,
A soul is raised, or fed, or warmed. ”

“ And I wholly misdoubt, you perceive,
⁠That laughter must always prove gladness.
Are you sure it is grief when a tear starts?
⁠Can you trust smiles of mirth in all places?
If aught can be falser than human hearts,
⁠It must surely be human faces! ”

“ The amorous gales are the virtues and graces of the Beloved, which, because of its union with the Bridegroom, play around the soul, and, most lovingly sent forth, touch it in their own substance. The whisper of the gales is a most sublime and sweet knowledge of God and of His attributes, which overflows into the understanding from the contact of the attributes of God with the substance of the soul. This is the highest delight of which the soul is capable in this life. ”

“ Out of the future, or the past?
Ah! gleam and gloom must ever meet,
And gall must mingle with the sweet.
Yea, upon the baby's laughter
Trickled tears: 'tis ever so —
Mothers dread the dark hereafter;
But the babe laughed sweet and low.
And the years like waves broke on the shore
Of the mother's heart, and her baby's life;
But her lone heart drifted away before
Her little boy knew an hour of strife;
Drifted away on a Summer's eve,
Ere the orphaned child knew how to grieve
Her humble grave was gently made
Where roses bloomed in Summer's glow ”

“ If he cry during some emotional part of his discourse, let it not be an old-fashioned cry, with big hands or coat sleeve sopping up the tears, but let there be just two elegant tears, one from each eye, rolling down parallel into a pocket-handkerchief richly embroidered by the sewing society, and inscribed with the names of all the young ladies' Bible class. ”

“ I was Geffrey's wife; Young Arthur is my son, and he is lost. I am not mad-I would to heaven I were! For then 'tis like I should forget myself. O, if I could, what grief should I forget! Preach some philosophy to make me mad, And thou shalt be canoniz'd, Cardinal; For, being not mad, but sensible of grief, My reasonable part produces reason How I may be deliver'd of these woes, And teaches me to kill or hang myself. ”

“ Had you to weep because the being whom you had learned to worship had with wanton frolic and a mocking smile plucked out your heart-strings and left you forlorn and desolate, a prey to ignominy and to lifelong regret? And had you to weep tears of bitter humiliation in the knowledge that those who hated and despised you were laughing their fill at your folly? Oh! I, too, Mademoiselle Fernande, was young then ... ”

“ And her lips they were moving in prayer,
And her face it wore just such a smile
As, perhaps, it was oft wont to wear,
Ere the heart of the girl knew a guile,
Ere the soul of the girl knew the wile,
That had led her to passion's despair.
Death's shadows crept over her face,
And softened the hard marks of care;
Repentance had won a last grace,
And the Angel of Mercy stood there.
The Rosary of My Tears
Some reckon their age by years,
Some measure their life by art;
But some tell their days by the flow of their tears,
And their lives by the moans of their heart. ”

“ And therefore should we all—like consecrated priestesses,—go forth:—forth to suffering and to shame, with the laughter of Spring, and its cry Evoë! love for love, joy for joy, pain for pain,—welling up from our hearts! ”

“ That form, expressive of a soul divine,
So early blighted; and while life is mine,
With fond regret, and ceaseless grief deplored–
That grief, my angel! with too faithful art
Enshrines thy image in thy Mother's heart. ”

“ As she asked this question, she gave a sudden sob, [Pg 14] and some tears fell on the front of her pretty purple dress.
"Do not cry, my sweetest treasure," cried the mother, drawing the child's head down on her shoulder, and once more covering it with kisses. "What does it matter what we are like here? If thou canst not walk nor run here, by-and-by Christ will carry my little lamb in his bosom; and if thou hast a hump on thy back now, what does it matter? Some day the good Lord Jesus will call my little one to himself, and then all the pain will be gone ”

“ Passion flickered, waned, and, on a pause of doubt and misgiving, tenderness dawned—tenderness, pity, remorse, regret, a growing horror and anguish, a growing knowledge of Heaven forfeited, of Hell made sure, a crescent terror, and dismay unspeakable, and under it all tenderness deepening, deepening, deepening, like a flood pressing against a barrier that it must at last break down. ”

“ Each cloud, that stained it once, away is driven:
Come, mother, come, and with thee many bring;
Cry, ‘Here is spread the banquet of the King;’
Come, all ye faithful—come, and dare to prove
The bitter-sweet, the pain and bliss of love.”
So cried the child unto that crowd of men ”

“ Each laborious step which galls his wounded feet in rough and untrodden paths pours a drop of balm into his troubled soul, and the journey of many a weary day brings a nightly relief to his anguished heart. Will you dare call this enthusiasm, ye crowd of pompous declaimers? Enthusiasm! O God! thou seest my tears. Thou hast allotted us our portion of misery: must we also have brethren to persecute us, to deprive us of our consolation, of our trust in thee, and in thy love and mercy? ”

“ But soon the gale too rudely swept—
The lute lay broken on the ground!
These things are emblems of my heart;
And what has been thine influence there?
You taught me first love's happiness,
How could you teach me love's despair! ”

“ But if her offering—as it certainly was—was the gift of love, how shall we explain her tears? for love, in the presence of the beloved, does not weep so passionately, indeed does not weep at all, except, it may be, tears of joy, or tears of a mutual sorrow. ”

“ Within my soul a sorrow—
A bitterness there dwelt.
And while I look it changes;
My mother’s face I see.
The features calm in prayer—
That prayer is for me.
The eyes with tear-drops heavy,
The lips drawn for a kiss ”