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Home›Traditions›Black Church Tradition

Black Church Tradition Illustrations

Liberation, exodus, and prophetic justice rooted in the African American church tradition.

Key question: “How does this text speak to the experiences of suffering, hope, and liberation within the Black community?”

24,061 sermon illustrations through the Black Church Tradition lens

Poetry

The Little Girl Found

All the night in woe Lyca's parents go Over valleys deep, While the deserts weep. Tired and woe-begone, Hoarse with making moan, Arm in arm, seven days They traced the desert ways. Seven nights they sleep Among shadows deep, And...

Universal

William Blake

167 words

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Poetry

My prayers must meet a brazen heaven

My prayers must meet a brazen heaven And fail and scatter all away. Unclean and seeming unforgiven My prayers I scarcely call to pray. I...

Universal

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Short88 words

Poetry

Sonnet 126: O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power

O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power Dost hold Time's fickle glass, his fickle hour; Who hast by waning grown, and therein show'st Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self grow'st.

To a Vain Lady

Ah, heedless girl! why thus disclose What ne'er was meant for other ears; Why thus destroy thine own repose, And dig the source of future tears?

Universal

George Gordon, Lord Byron

192 words

Poetry

A Psalm of Life

WHAT THE HEART OF THE YOUNG MAN SAID TO THE PSALMIST. Tell me not, in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream! For the soul is dead that slumbers, And things are not what they seem. Life is real!

Universal

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

186 words

Poetry

Song

Breeze of the night in gentler sighs More softly murmur o'er the pillow; For Slumber seals my Fanny's eyes, And Peace must never shun her pillow.

Universal

George Gordon, Lord Byron

131 words

Poetry

Daylight and Moonlight

In broad daylight, and at noon, Yesterday I saw the moon Sailing high, but faint and white, As a schoolboy's paper kite. In broad daylight, yesterday, I read a poet's mystic lay; And it seemed to me at most As a phantom, or a ghost.

Universal

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Short90 words

Poetry

Flowers in Winter

How strange to greet, this frosty morn, In graceful counterfeit of flower, These children of the meadows, born Of sunshine and of showers! How well the conscious wood retains The pictures of its flower-sown home, The lights and shades, the...

Universal

John Greenleaf Whittier

336 words

Poetry

Turkeys

The turkeys wade the close to catch the bees In the old border full of maple trees And often lay away and breed and come And bring a brood of chelping chickens home.

Sonnet 94: They that have power to hurt, and will do none

They that have power to hurt, and will do none, That do not do the thing they most do show, Who, moving others, are themselves as stone, Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow; They rightly do inherit heaven's graces, And...

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...

Universal

George Gordon, Lord Byron

108 words

Poetry

Good and Bad Children

Children, you are very little, And your bones are very brittle; If you would grow great and stately, You must try to walk sedately. You must still be bright and quiet, And content with simple diet; And remain, through all bewild'ring, Innocent and honest children.

Universal

Robert Louis Stevenson

Short94 words

Poetry

Sonnet 28: How can I then return in happy plight

How can I then return in happy plight, That am debarre'd the benefit of rest?

Love

Why is it said thou canst not live In a youthful breast and fair, Since thou eternal life canst give, Canst bloom for ever there?

From Cocoon forth a Butterfly

From Cocoon forth a Butterfly As Lady from her Door Emerged -- a Summer Afternoon -- Repairing Everywhere -- Without Design -- that I could...

Sonnet. to Genevra

Thy cheek is pale with thought, but not from woe, And yet so lovely, that if Mirth could flush Its rose of whiteness with the brightest blush, My heart would wish away that ruder glow: And dazzle not thy deep-blue eyes--but, oh!

Universal

George Gordon, Lord Byron

110 words

Poetry

I Dreamt of Robin

I opened the casement this morn at starlight, And, the moment I got out of bed, The daisies were quaking about in their white And the cowslip was nodding its head.

Remember Him, Whom Passion's Power

Remember him, whom Passion's power Severely--deeply--vainly proved: Remember thou that dangerous hour, When neither fell, though both were loved. That yielding breast, that melting eye,...

Universal

George Gordon, Lord Byron

337 words

Poetry

Happy Is England! I Could Be Content

Happy is England! I could be content To see no other verdure than its own; To feel no other breezes than are blown Through its...

On Leaving Newstead Abbey

Why dost thou build the hall, Son of the winged days? Thou lookest from thy tower to-day: yet a few years, and the blast of the desart comes: it howls in thy empty court.-OSSIAN.

Universal

George Gordon, Lord Byron

319 words

Poetry

To George, Earl Delawarr

yes, I will own we were dear to each other; The friendships of childhood, though fleeting, are true; The love which you felt was the love of a brother, Nor less the affection I cherish'd for you.

Universal

George Gordon, Lord Byron

309 words

Poetry

To Thyrza

Without a stone to mark the spot, And say, what Truth might well have said, By all, save one, perchance forgot, Ah! wherefore art thou lowly laid?

Universal

George Gordon, Lord Byron

379 words

Poetry

Songs of Experience: Introduction

Hear the voice of the Bard, Who present, past, and future, sees; Whose ears have heard The Holy Word That walked among the ancient tree; Calling the lapsed soul, And weeping in the evening dew; That might control The starry...

Herod's Lament for Mariamne

Oh, Mariamne! now for thee The heart for which thou bled'st is bleeding; Revenge is lost in Agony And wild Remorse to rage succeeding. Oh, Mariamne! where art thou? Thou canst not hear my bitter pleading: Ah! could'st thou--thou would'st...

Universal

George Gordon, Lord Byron

155 words