Browse Sermon Illustrations
2,202 illustrations available
Sonnet 102: My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seeming
My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seeming; I love not less, though less the show appear; That love is merchandiz'd, whose rich esteeming, The owner's tongue doth publish every where. Our lo
Hope
And said I that all hope was fled, That sorrow and despair were mine, That each enthusiast wish was dead, Had sank beneath pale Misery's shrine.-- Seest thou the sunbeam's yellow glow, That robes wit
Sonnet 14: Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck
Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck; And yet methinks I have astronomy, But not to tell of good or evil luck, Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality; Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tel
A Child Asleep
How he sleepeth! having drunken Weary childhood's mandragore, From his pretty eyes have sunken Pleasures, to make room for more--- Sleeping near the withered nosegay, which he pulled the day before.
Sonnet 112: Your love and pity doth the impression fill
Your love and pity doth the impression fill, Which vulgar scandal stamp'd upon my brow; For what care I who calls me well or ill, So you o'er-green my bad, my good allow? You are my all-the-world, and
Farmer's Boy
He waits all day beside his little flock And asks the passing stranger what's o'clock, But those who often pass his daily tasks Look at their watch and tell before he asks. He mutters stories to himse
Within the Circuit of This Plodding Life
Within the circuit of this plodding life There enter moments of an azure hue, Untarnished fair as is the violet Or anemone, when the spring strews them By some meandering rivulet, which make The best
Sonnet 31: Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts
Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts, Which I by lacking have supposed dead; And there reigns Love, and all Love's loving parts, And all those friends which I thought buried. How many a holy and obse
Moonlight
As a pale phantom with a lamp Ascends some ruin's haunted stair, So glides the moon along the damp Mysterious chambers of the air. Now hidden in cloud, and now revealed, As if this phantom, full of p
Song
One gloomy eve I roamed about Neath Oxey's hazel bowers, While timid hares were darting out, To crop the dewy flowers; And soothing was the scene to me, Right pleased was my soul, My breast was
Sonnet 92: But do thy worst to steal thyself away
But do thy worst to steal thyself away, For term of life thou art assured mine; And life no longer than thy love will stay, For it depends upon that love of thine. Then need I not to fear the worst of
I am the autumnal sun
Sometimes a mortal feels in himself Nature -- not his Father but his Mother stirs within him, and he becomes immortal with her immortality. From time to time she claims kindredship with us, and some g
Early Spring
The Spring is come, and Spring flowers coming too, The crocus, patty kay, the rich hearts' ease; The polyanthus peeps with blebs of dew, And daisy flowers; the buds swell on the trees; Whi
Sonnet 84: Who is it that says most, which can say more
Who is it that says most, which can say more, Than this rich praise,--that you alone, are you? In whose confine immured is the store Which should example where your equal grew. Lean penury within that
Farewell and Defiance to Love
Love and thy vain employs, away From this too oft deluded breast! No longer will I court thy stay, To be my bosom's teazing guest. Thou treacherous medicine, reckoned pure, Thou quackery of the harass
Gipsies
The snow falls deep; the forest lies alone; The boy goes hasty for his load of brakes, Then thinks upon the fire and hurries back; The gipsy knocks his hands and tucks them up, And seeks his squalid c
Merry Maid
Bonny and stout and brown, without a hat, She frowns offended when they call her fat-- Yet fat she is, the merriest in the place, And all can know she wears a pretty face. But still she never heeds wh
Death
The winds and waters are in his command, Held as a courser in the rider's hand. He lets them loose, they triumph at his will: He checks their course and all is calm and still. Life's hopes waste all t
Dewdrops
The dewdrops on every blade of grass are so much like silver drops that I am obliged to stoop down as I walk to see if they are pearls, and those sprinkled on the ivy-woven beds of primroses underneat
Insects
These tiny loiterers on the barley's beard, And happy units of a numerous herd Of playfellows, the laughing Summer brings, Mocking the sunshine in their glittering wings, How merrily they creep, and r
The Shepherd's Tree
Huge elm, with rifted trunk all notched and scarred, Like to a warrior's destiny! I love To stretch me often on thy shadowed sward, And hear the laugh of summer leaves above; Or on thy buttressed
Mary Bayfield
How beautiful the summer night When birds roost on the mossy tree, When moon and stars are shining bright And home has gone the weary bee! Then Mary Bayfield seeks the glen, The white hawthorn a
Quail's Nest
I wandered out one rainy day And heard a bird with merry joys Cry "wet my foot" for half the way; I stood and wondered at the noise, When from my foot a bird did flee-- The rain flew bouncing f
The Destruction of Sennacherib
The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Ga