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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
Bright ball of flame that through the gloom of even Silently takest thine aethereal way, And with surpassing glory dimm'st each ray Twinkling amid the dark blue depths of Heaven,-- Unlike the fire thou bearest, soon shalt thou Fade like...
O the old wall here! How I could pass Life in a long midsummer day, My feet confined to a plot of grass, My eyes from a wall not once away!
that you were your self; but, love you are No longer yours, than you your self here live: Against this coming end you should prepare, And your sweet semblance to some other give: So should that beauty which you hold...
BREATHES there the man with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, 'This is my own, my native land!' Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd As home his footsteps he hath turn'd From wandering on a foreign strand?
The coach is at the door at last; The eager children, mounting fast And kissing hands, in chorus sing: Good-bye, good-bye, to everything! To house and garden, field and lawn, The meadow-gates we swang upon, To pump and stable, tree...
Dear love, for nothing less than thee Would I have broke this happy dream; It was a theme For reason, much too strong for phantasy: Therefore thou waked'st me wisely; yet My dream thou brok'st not, but continued'st it.
From fairest creatures we desire increase, That thereby beauty's rose might never die, But as the riper should by time decease, His tender heir might bear his memory: But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes, Feed'st thy light's flame...
And what is Life?--An hour-glass on the run, A mist retreating from the morning sun, A busy, bustling, still repeated dream; Its length?--A minute's pause, a moment's thought; And happiness?-A bubble on the stream, That in the act of seizing shrinks to nought.
Thank Heaven! the crisis-- The danger is past, And the lingering illness Is over at last-- And the fever called "Living" Is conquered at last.
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,...
THROUGH the soft evening air enwrinding all, Rocks, woods, fort, cannon, pacing sentries, endless wilds, In dulcet streams, in flutes’ and cornets’ notes, Electric, pensive, turbulent artificial, (Yet strangely fitting even here, meanings unknown before, Subtler than ever, more harmony,...
'What art thou, Presumptuous, who profanest The wreath to mighty poets only due, Even whilst like a forgotten moon thou wanest?
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!
The heroes of the present and the past Were puny, vague, and nothingness to thee: Thou didst a span grasp mighty to the last, And strain for glory when thy die was cast.
To make me give the lie to my true sight, And swear that brightness doth not grace the day?
Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Arise, arise, arise! There is blood on the earth that denies ye bread; Be your wounds like eyes To weep for the dead, the dead, the dead. What other grief were it just to pay?
I will not gainsay love, called love forsooth. I have heard love talked in my early youth, And since, not so long back but that the flowers Then gathered, smell still. Mussulmans and Giaours Throw kerchiefs at a smile, and...
FAREWELL, thou fair day, thou green earth, and ye skies, Now gay with the broad setting sun; Farewell, loves and friendships, ye dear tender ties, Our race of existence is run! Thou grim King of Terrors; thou Life’s gloomy foe!
Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took, And each doth good turns now unto the other: When that mine eye is famish'd for a look, Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother, With my love's picture...
Ζωή μου, σᾶς ἀγαπῶ. Maid of Athens, ere we part, Give, oh give me back my heart! Or, since that has left my breast, Keep it now, and take the rest! Hear my vow before I go, Ζωή μου, σᾶς ἀγαπῶ.
At midnight, in the month of June, I stand beneath the mystic moon. An opiate vapor, dewy, dim, Exhales from out her golden rim, And, softly dripping, drop by drop, Upon the quiet mountain top, Steals drowsily and musically Into the universal valley.
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...
Oh, to vex me, contraries meet in one: Inconstancy unnaturally hath begot A constant habit; that when I would not I change in vows, and in devotion.