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Home›Traditions›Traditional

Traditional Illustrations

The orthodox, historical consensus of biblical interpretation.

Key question: “What is the most widely accepted and historically grounded understanding of this text?”

25,889 sermon illustrations through the Traditional lens

Poetry

56. Epistle to Davie, A Brother Poet

WHILE winds frae aff Ben-Lomond blaw, An’ bar the doors wi’ driving snaw, An’ hing us owre the ingle, I set me down to pass the time, An’ spin a verse or twa o’ rhyme, In hamely, westlin jingle.

Universal

Robert Burns

1047 words

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Fable

The Lion and the Statue

We can easily represent things as we wish them to be

Universalperspectivebias

Aesop

Short16 words

Poetry

Thoughts Suggested by a College Examination

High in the midst, surrounded by his peers, Magnus his ample front sublime uprears: Plac'd on his chair of state, he seems a God, While Sophs and Freshmen tremble at his nod; As all around sit wrapt in speechless gloom,...

Universal

George Gordon, Lord Byron

478 words

Poetry

Obermann Once More

Glion?--Ah, twenty years, it cuts All meaning from a name! White houses prank where once were huts. Glion, but not the same! And yet I know not! All unchanged The turf, the pines, the sky! The hills in their old...

Ode From the French

We do not curse thee, Waterloo!

Universal

George Gordon, Lord Byron

526 words

Poetry

The Deformed Transformed:

SCENE I.--_A Forest_. _Enter_ ARNOLD _and his mother_ BERTHA. _Bert._ Out, Hunchback! _Arn._ I was born so, Mother! _Bert._ Out, Thou incubus! Thou nightmare! Of seven sons, The sole abortion! _Arn._ Would that I had been so, And never seen the light!

Universal

George Gordon, Lord Byron

19464 words

Poetry

The Strayed Reveller

1 Faster, faster, 2 O Circe, Goddess, 3 Let the wild, thronging train 4 The bright procession 5 Of eddying forms, 6 Sweep through my soul! 7 Thou standest, smiling 8 Down on me!

A Poem Upon The Death Of O.C.

That Providence which had so long the care Of Cromwell's head, and numbred ev'ry hair, Now in its self (the Glass where all appears) Had seen the period of his golden Years: And thenceforth onely did attend to trace, What...

Waring

What's become of Waring Since he gave us all the slip, Chose land-travel or seafaring, Boots and chest or staff and scrip, Rather than pace up and down Any longer London town?

To Edward Noel Long, Esq

"Nil ego contulerim jucundo sanus amico."--HORACE.

Universal

George Gordon, Lord Byron

648 words

Poetry

Messiah.

A SACRED ECLOGUE, IN IMITATION OF VIRGIL'S 'POLLIO.' Ye Nymphs of Solyma! begin the song: To heavenly themes sublimer strains belong. The mossy fountains, and the sylvan shades, The dreams of Pindus and the Aonian maids, Delight no more--O Thou...

Hiawatha's Childhood

Downward through the evening twilight, In the days that are forgotten, In the unremembered ages, From the full moon fell Nokomis, Fell the beautiful Nokomis, She a wife, but not a mother.

Universal

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

1110 words

Poetry

The Blues: A Literary Eclogue

"Nimium ne crede colori."--Virgil, ECLOGUE THE FIRST. _London.--Before the Door of a Lecture Room_. _Enter_ TRACY, _meeting_ INKEL. You're too late. Is it over? Nor will be this hour. But the benches are crammed, like a garden in flower.

Universal

George Gordon, Lord Byron

5055 words

Poetry

Mesmerism

All I believed is true! I am able yet All I want, to get By a method as strange as new: Dare I trust the same to you?

Universal

Robert Browning

996 words

Fable

The Wolf and the Lamb

Any excuse will serve a tyrant

Universalinjusticepower

Aesop

Short11 words

Poetry

Sohrab and Rustum

And the first grey of morning fill'd the east, And the fog rose out of the Oxus stream.

Morituri Salutamus: Poem for the Fiftieth Anniversary

Tempora labuntur, tacitisque senescimus annis, Et fugiunt freno non remorante dies. Ovid, Fastorum, Lib. "O Cжsar, we who are about to die Salute you!" was the gladiators' cry In the arena, standing face to face With death and with the Roman populace.

Universal

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

1878 words

Poetry

Al Aaraaf

nothing earthly save the ray (Thrown back from flowers) of Beauty's eye, As in those gardens where the day Springs from the gems of Circassy-- O!

Fragment: Supposed to Be an Epithalamium of Francis Ravaillac and Charlotte Corday

'Tis midnight now--athwart the murky air, Dank lurid meteors shoot a livid gleam; From the dark storm-clouds flashes a fearful glare, It shows the bending oak, the roaring stream.

Paradise Lost: Book 12

As one who in his journey bates at noon, Though bent on speed; so here the Arch-Angel paused Betwixt the world destroyed and world restored, If Adam aught perhaps might interpose; Then, with transition sweet, new speech resumes.

The Barefoot Boy

Blessings on thee, little man, Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan!

Universal

John Greenleaf Whittier

475 words

Poetry

Ode to Liberty

Yet, Freedom, yet, thy banner, torn but flying, Streams like a thunder-storm against the wind.--BYRON. A glorious people vibrated again The lightning of the nations: Liberty From heart to heart, from tower to tower, o'er Spain, Scattering contagious fire into the sky, Gleamed.

Universal

Percy Bysshe Shelley

1859 words

Fable

The Woodman and the Serpent

No gratitude from the wicked

Universalgratitudewickedness

Aesop

Short10 words

Poetry

Paradise Lost: Book 03

Hail, holy Light, offspring of Heaven firstborn, Or of the Eternal coeternal beam May I express thee unblam'd? since God is light, And never but in unapproached light Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee Bright effluence of bright essence increate.

Universal

John Milton

4941 words