Browse All Sermon Illustrations

Were My Bosom As False As Thou Deem'st It to Be

Were my bosom as false as thou deem'st it to be, I need not have wandered from far Galilee; It was but abjuring my creed...

108 words

Fragments Written for Hellas

Fairest of the Destinies, Disarray thy dazzling eyes: Keener far thy lightnings are Than the winged thou bearest, And the smile thou wearest Wraps thee as a star Is wrapped in light.

A Musical Instrument

What was he doing, the great god Pan, Down in the reeds by the river? Spreading ruin and scattering ban, Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat, And breaking the golden lilies afloat With the dragon-fly on the river.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

269 words

488. Song—The Winter of Life

BUT lately seen in gladsome green, The woods rejoic’d the day, Thro’ gentle showers, the laughing flowers In double pride were gay: But now our joys are fled On winter blasts awa; Yet maiden May, in rich array, Again shall bring them a’.

Music At The Villa Marina

FOR some abiding central source of power, Strong-smitten steady chords, ye seem to flow And, flowing, carry virtue.

Robert Louis Stevenson

199 words

Sonnet 38 - First time he kissed me, he but only kissed

First time he kissed me, he but only kissed The fingers of this hand wherewith I write; And ever since, it grew more clean and white, Slow to world-greetings, quick with its 'Oh, list,' When the angels speak.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

104 words

Lines Written During the Castlereagh Administration

Corpses are cold in the tomb; Stones on the pavement are dumb; Abortions are dead in the womb, And their mothers look pale--like the death-white shore Of Albion, free no more.

Pan, Echo, and the Satyr

FROM THE GREEK OF MOSCHUS. Pan loved his neighbour Echo--but that child Of Earth and Air pined for the Satyr leaping; The Satyr loved with wasting madness wild The bright nymph Lyda,--and so three went weeping.

Epilogue

THERE'S something in a stupid ass, And something in a heavy dunce; But never since I went to school I heard or saw so damned a fool As William Wordsworth is for once.

124 words

73. Song—Farewell to Ballochmyle

THE CATRINE woods were yellow seen, The flowers decay’d on Catrine lee, Nae lav’rock sang on hillock green, But nature sicken’d on the e’e. Thro’ faded groves Maria sang, Hersel’ in beauty’s bloom the while; And aye the wild-wood ehoes...

Elegy IX: The Autumnal

No spring nor summer Beauty hath such grace As I have seen in one autumnall face. Young beauties force our love, and that's a rape, This doth but counsel, yet you cannot 'scape. If 'twere a shame to love, here...

To Caroline

You say you love, and yet your eye No symptom of that love conveys, You say you love, yet know not why, Your cheek no sign of love betrays.

322 words

To Sophia [Miss Stacey]

Thou art fair, and few are fairer Of the Nymphs of earth or ocean; They are robes that fit the wearer-- Those soft limbs of thine, whose motion Ever falls and shifts and glances As the life within them dances.

I Would I Were a Careless Child

I would I were a careless child, Still dwelling in my Highland cave, Or roaming through the dusky wild, Or bounding o'er the dark blue...

370 words

The Wandering Jew's Soliloquy

Is it the Eternal Triune, is it He Who dares arrest the wheels of destiny And plunge me in the lowest Hell of Hells? Will not the lightning's blast destroy my frame? Will not steel drink the blood-life where it swells?

Love

Love, though it is not chill and cold, But burning like eternal fire, Is yet not of approaches bold, Which gay dramatic tastes admire. Oh...

314. Song—There’ll never be Peace till Jamie comes hame

BY yon Castle wa’, at the close of the day, I heard a man sing, tho’ his head it was grey: And as he was singing, the tears doon came,— There’ll never be peace till Jamie comes hame.

One Sister have I in our house

One Sister have I in our house, And one, a hedge away. There's only one recorded, But both belong to me. One came the road...

Holy Sonnet XVII: Since She Whom I Loved

Since she whom I loved hath paid her last debt To Nature, and to hers, and my good is dead, And her soul early into heaven ravished, Wholly on heavenly things my mind is set.

To Lord Thurlow

"_I lay my branch of laurel down_." "_THOU_ lay thy branch of _laurel_ down!" Why, what thou'st stole is not enow; And, were it lawfully thine own, Does Rogers want it most, or thou?

187 words

Holy Sonnet XIV: Batter My Heart, Three-Person'd God

Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend; That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.

Graves of Infants

Infant' graves are steps of angels, where Earth's brightest gems of innocence repose. God is their parent, and they need no tear; He takes them to His bosom from earth's woes, A bud their lifetime and a flower their close.