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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

To Jane: The Recollection

Now the last day of many days, All beautiful and bright as thou, The loveliest and the last, is dead, Rise, Memory, and write its praise! Up,--to thy wonted work!

Universal

Percy Bysshe Shelley

408 words

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Poetry

Winter: My Secret

I tell my secret? No indeed, not I: Perhaps some day, who knows? But not today; it froze, and blows, and snows, And you're too curious: fie! You want to hear it? well: Only, my secret's mine, and I won't tell.

Universal

Christina Rossetti

202 words

Poetry

Euthanasia

When Time, or soon or late, shall bring The dreamless sleep that lulls the dead, Oblivion! may thy languid wing Wave gently o'er my dying bed!

Universal

George Gordon, Lord Byron

237 words

Poetry

The Coliseum

Type of the antique Rome! Rich reliquary Of lofty contemplation left to Time By buried centuries of pomp and power!

Sonnet 50: How heavy do I journey on the way

How heavy do I journey on the way, When what I seek, my weary travel's end, Doth teach that ease and that repose to say, 'Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend!' The beast that bears me, tired...

The Vixen

Among the taller wood with ivy hung, The old fox plays and dances round her young. She snuffs and barks if any passes bye And swings her tail and turns prepared to fly. The horseman hurries bye, she bolts to...

Scandal

She hastens out and scarcely pins her clothes To hear the news and tell the news she knows; She talks of sluts, marks each unmended gown, Her self the dirtiest slut in all the town.

The Twins

Grand rough old Martin Luther Bloomed fables-flowers on furze, The better the uncouther: Do roses stick like burrs?

Love's Last Adieu

The roses of Love glad the garden of life, Though nurtur'd 'mid weeds dropping pestilent dew, Till Time crops the leaves with unmerciful knife, Or prunes them for ever, in Love's last adieu!

Universal

George Gordon, Lord Byron

376 words

Poetry

Spring

Nothing is so beautiful as spring— When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush; Thrush's eggs look little low heavens, and thrush Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring The ear, it strikes like lightnings to...

Universal

Gerard Manley Hopkins

125 words

Poetry

To The Willow-Tree

Thou art to all lost love the best, The only true plant found, Wherewith young men and maids distrest And left of love, are crown'd. When once the lover's rose is dead Or laid aside forlorn, Then willow-garlands, 'bout the...

Sonnet 21 - Say over again, and yet once over again

Though the word repeated Should seem 'a cuckoo-song,' as thou dost treat it, Remember, never to the hill or plain, Valley and wood, without her cuckoo-strain Comes the fresh Spring in all her green completed.

Universal

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Short98 words

Poetry

254. Caledonia: A Ballad

THERE was once a day, but old Time wasythen young, That brave Caledonia, the chief of her line, From some of your northern deities sprung, (Who knows not that brave Caledonia’s divine?) From Tweed to the Orcades was her domain,...

Fragment: The False Laurel and the True

'What art thou, Presumptuous, who profanest The wreath to mighty poets only due, Even whilst like a forgotten moon thou wanest?

Sonnet 49: Against that time, if ever that time come

Against that time, if ever that time come, When I shall see thee frown on my defects, When as thy love hath cast his utmost sum, Call'd to that audit by advis'd respects; Against that time when thou shalt strangely...

The Flower of Liberty

WHAT flower is this that greets the morn, Its hues from Heaven so freshly born? With burning star and flaming band It kindles all the sunset land: Oh tell us what its name may be,-- Is this the Flower of Liberty?

Universal

Oliver Wendell Holmes

211 words

Poetry

On the Star of "the Legion of Honour."

Star of the brave!--whose beam hath shed Such glory o'er the quick and dead-- Thou radiant and adored deceit! Which millions rushed in arms to greet,-- Wild meteor of immortal birth! Why rise in Heaven to set on Earth?

Universal

George Gordon, Lord Byron

235 words

Poetry

A SONG

Sweet dreams, form a shade O'er my lovely infant's head! Sweet dreams of pleasant streams By happy, silent, moony beams! Sweet Sleep, with soft down Weave thy brows an infant crown Sweet Sleep, angel mild, Hover o'er my happy child!

Sonnet 41: Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits

Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits, When I am sometime absent from thy heart, Thy beauty, and thy years full well befits, For still temptation follows where thou art.

Ode to Heaven

CHORUS OF SPIRITS: FIRST SPIRIT: Palace-roof of cloudless nights! Paradise of golden lights! Deep, immeasurable, vast, Which art now, and which wert then Of the Present and the Past, Of the eternal Where and When, Presence-chamber, temple, home, Ever-canopying dome,...

209. Song—M’Pherson’s Farewell

FAREWELL, ye dungeons dark and strong, The wretch’s destinie! M’Pherson’s time will not be long On yonder gallows-tree. Chorus.—Sae rantingly, sae wantonly, Sae dauntingly gaed he; He play’d a spring, and danc’d it round, Below the gallows-tree. O, what is death but parting breath?

The Picture Of Little T.C. In A Prospect Of Flowers

See with what simplicity This Nimph begins her golden daies! In the green Grass she loves to lie, And there with her fair Aspect tames The Wilder flow'rs, and gives them names: But only with the Roses playes; And them...

Sonnet 23: As an unperfect actor on the stage

As an unperfect actor on the stage, Who with his fear is put beside his part, Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage, Whose strength's abundance weakens his own heart; So I, for fear of trust, forget to...

To a Star

Sweet star, which gleaming o'er the darksome scene Through fleecy clouds of silvery radiance fliest, Spanglet of light on evening's shadowy veil, Which shrouds the day-beam from the waveless lake, Lighting the hour of sacred love; more sweet Than the...

Universal

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Short97 words