Browse Sermon Illustrations
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Fragment
Yes! all is past--swift time has fled away, Yet its swell pauses on my sickening mind; How long will horror nerve this frame of clay? I'm dead, and lingers yet my soul behind. Oh! powerful Fate, revok
The Duel
'Tis fifty years, and yet their fray To us might seem but yesterday. Tis fifty years, and three to boot, Since, hand to hand, and foot to foot, And heart to heart, and sword to sword, One of our Ances
Sonnet 33 - Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hear
Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hear The name I used to run at, when a child, From innocent play, and leave the cowslips piled, To glance up in some face that proved me dear With the look of its e
Invocation to Misery
Come, be happy!--sit near me, Shadow-vested Misery: Coy, unwilling, silent bride, Mourning in thy robe of pride, Desolation--deified! Come, be happy!--sit near me: Sad as I may seem to thee, I am hap
Nature -- the Gentlest Mother is,
Nature -- the Gentlest Mother is, Impatient of no Child -- The feeblest -- or the waywardest -- Her Admonition mild -- In Forest -- and the Hill -- By Traveller -- be heard -- Restraining Rampant Squ
A Part of an Ode
to the Immortal Memory and Friendship of that noble pair, Sir Lucius Cary and Sir H. Morison IT is not growing like a tree In bulk, doth make man better be; Or standing long an oak, three hundred
Lines Inscribed upon a Cup Formed From a Skull
Start not--nor deem my spirit fled: In me behold the only skull, From which, unlike a living head, Whatever flows is never dull. I lived, I loved, I quaff'd, like thee: I died: let earth my bon
Sin's Round
Sorry I am, my God, sorry I am, That my offences course it in a ring. My thoughts are working like a busy flame, Until their cockatrice they hatch and bring: And when they once have perfected their dr
Sonnet 7: Lo! in the orient when the gracious light
Lo! in the orient when the gracious light Lifts up his burning head, each under eye Doth homage to his new-appearing sight, Serving with looks his sacred majesty; And having climb'd the steep-up heave
Holy Sonnet VI: This Is My Play's Last Scene
This is my play's last scene, here heavens appoint My pilgrimage's last mile; and my race Idly, yet quickly run, hath this last pace, My span's last inch, my minute's latest point, And gluttonous deat
To a Lady Who Presented to the Author a Lock of Hair Braided With His Own, and Appointed a Night in December to Meet Him in the Garden
These locks, which fondly thus entwine, In firmer chains our hearts confine, Than all th' unmeaning protestations Which swell with nonsense, love orations. Our love is fix'd, I think we've prov'd it;
Sonnet 3: Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest
Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest Now is the time that face should form another; Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest, Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother. For where
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 flow
Sonnet 1: From fairest creatures we desire increase
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
Prayer
Prayer the Churches banquet, Angels age, Gods breath in man returning to his birth, The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgramage, The Christian plummet sounding heav'n and earth; Engine against th'Almi
A Birthday
My heart is like a singing bird Whose nest is in a water'd shoot; My heart is like an apple-tree Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit; My heart is like a rainbow shell That paddles in a halcyon s
Holy Sonnet IV: Oh My Black Soul! Now Art Thou Summoned
Oh my black soul! now art thou summoned By sickness, death's herald, and champion; Thou art like a pilgrim, which abroad hath done Treason, and durst not turn to whence he is fled; Or like a thief, wh
Human Life's Mystery (excerpt)
We sow the glebe, we reap the corn, We build the house where we may rest, And then, at moments, suddenly, We look up to the great wide sky, Inquiring wherefore we were born... For earnest or for jest?
Sonnet 34 - With the same heart, I said, I'll answer thee
With the same heart, I said, I'll answer thee As those, when thou shalt call me by my name— Lo, the vain promise! is the same, the same, Perplexed and ruffled by life's strategy? When called before, I
A Song (A Cradle 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
To R. B.
The fine delight that fathers thought; the strong Spur, live and lancing like the blowpipe flame, Breathes once and, quenched faster than it came, Leaves yet the mind a mother of immortal song. Nine m
Epitaph for Joseph Blacket, Late Poet and Shoemaker
STRANGER! behold, interred together, The _souls_ of learning and of leather. Poor Joe is gone, but left his _all_: You'll find his relics in a _stall_. His works were neat, and often found Well stitch
Remind Me Not, Remind Me Not
Remind me not, remind me not, Of those beloved, those vanish'd hours, When all my soul was given to thee; Hours that may never be forgot, Till Time unnerves our vital powers, And thou and
Holy Sonnet I: Thou Has Made Me
Tho has made me, and shall thy work decay? Repair me now, for now mine end doth haste; I run to death, and death meets me as fast, And all my pleasures are like yesterday. I dare not move my dim eyes