Tower of Silence

“ But these walls, with their toothless battlements and turrets, in whose nooks and niches the winds blew and the sparrows rest, were not always so decayed and fallen, and in these poverty-stricken, repulsive muddy lanes which one sees through the ruined tower, there did not always reign that dreary silence which is only now and then broken by crying children, scolding women, and lowing cows. ”

“ From my tower I look out at the huge desolate heaves of the grey beacons. Their magnitude and pure form give me a great calm. Here is nothing human, gentle, disturbing, as there is in the vales. There is nothing but the hills and the silence, which is God. The greater heights, set free from night and the mist, look as if straight from the hands of God, as if here He also delighted in pure form and magnitude that are worthy of His love. ”

“ And he did not dream her eyes had been at the tower-window ever since. For their eyes never met.
But the people knew, and so they called her “Our Lady of the Tower.” And Nuestra Doña del Torre is she called there still. And thus they lived there alone within that great house, each for pity of the other in courage, each for awe of love in silence; each so loving, so brave, so silent, that the other never knew. ”

“ THE FULFILLED DREAM More towers must yet be built—more towers destroyed— Great rocks hoisted in air; And he must seek his bread in high pale sunlight With gulls about him, and clouds just over his eyes . . . And so he did not mention his dream of falling But drank his coffee in silence, and heard in his ears That horrible whistle of wind, and felt his breath Sucked out of him, and saw the tower flash by And the small tree swell beneath him . . . He patted his boy on the head, and kissed his wife, Looked quickly around the room, to remember it,— And so went out . ”

“ Now you can see it better as we come in front of the archway to the Castle-yard, the western tower. Well, they used to say it was haunted by the ghost of one of the wives of the family which owned it before the Midharsts came into the property. There's a tower on the Manor also, and no doubt you have heard or read of places in the East—China, I think, or maybe Rangoon—where they put their dead on the top of towers, called the Towers of Silence. The carrion birds eat off the flesh, and the bones fall through a grating. Well, Wat Grey calls these two towers the Towers of Silence. ”

“ These bearers come to every funeral in new garments. So far as is known, no human being, other than an official corpse-bearer—save one—has ever entered a Tower of Silence after its consecration. Just a hundred years ago a European rushed in behind the bearers and fed his brutal curiosity with a glimpse of the forbidden mysteries of the place. This shabby savage’s name is not given ”

“ Corpses being considered unclean by Parsee standards, carriers of the dead, as well as those who enter the Towers, are assigned to a class by themselves, and forbidden to mix with others of their strange religion. There is a superstition that an awful curse would be visited upon an unauthorized person whose gaze fell upon a body or skeleton inside a Tower of Silence. The habiliments of those whose duty takes them within are always destroyed before they leave the grounds. ”

“ The loud droning of the threshing-gin at the adjacent farm seemed to be in my ears, but in my heart was a more moving murmur. Gentle and forgotten place! With what croonings, what flutterings, had it not once been astir! Those little cavities into which she had thrust her hand were the cells of a once-throbbing heart. But who had built a Tower of stone to guard the dove's faithfulness? What masonry could make that, the very emblem of love, more secure? Of all birds, the constant dove to be thus immured? Towers are for the defence of the helpless, not of that invulnerable meekness and strength. ”

“ The sorrow, the torpor, the bitterness, the frail joy
Come up to us
Like a cold fog wrapping us round.
Oh in a hundred years
Not one of these blood-warm bodies
But will be worthless as clay.
The anguish, the torpor, the toil
Will have passed to other millions
Consumed by the same desires.
Ages will come and go,
Darkness will blot the lights
And the tower will be laid on the earth. ”

“ Hanging there, with the wind shaking the ivy, he could hear no sound in the tower and see no glimmer of light coming from the squints. The rising moon was beginning to throw gleams down into the valley, but the western quarter of the tower was as dark as a well. It was a moment when a man may feel scared by some vague, indefinite peril invisible to him in the darkness. Or he may clinch his teeth and keep his right hand ready, knowing, if he be a man who has had his share of adventure-hunting, that his own imagination may be far more sinister than any living thing on earth or sea. ”

“ I am a ghost, but you needn’t be at all alarmed. If you’ll go over and make yourself comfortable on that empty box near the other wall we can have a nice little visit. I have not appeared to a mortal for a long time and it’s a relief to have somebody to talk to. Since I’ve been haunting this tower I’ve stayed in a little crypt I have down under it. ”

“ Silence possessed the city like a soul possessed by calm.
Not a spark in the warren under the giant night,
Save where in a turret's lantern beamed a grave, still light:
There in the topmost chamber a gold-eyed lamp was lit —
Marvellous lamp in darkness, informing, redeeming it! ”

“ How solemnly the old ruinated fortress looks down upon the plain bathed in the rich lights of sunset. And around the walls and the tower sighs a spirit, and sighs the storm.
Let thy stay there be short and cautious, for the ruins are haunted by night. A maiden form rises from the dark vault, and wanders to the tower, and to the great gates, and an innocent countenance smiles upon thee. Guard thyself well, O wanderer; gaze not so deep in the mournful eyes; it is the Spectre-Maiden. ”

“ With affection, still constant amidst decay and ruin, the ivy clings to the old walls of Lag Tower, as though to preserve it from the further inroads of Time. Alas! unavailing protection. The heap of broken fragments which lie strewn around attest the fact that Time—that ruthless destroyer—has marked it for its prey. Whilst indulging in these melancholy reflections, the sound of footsteps behind me caused me to turn my head, in order to discover who thus intruded upon my privacy. ”

“ They have passed into the growing grain, into the thorny brake. They have melted into the loamy glebe. Shall not then this Tower in like manner pass away? And if towers cannot last for ever, how much less shall we rely for immortality upon the ever fickle breath of praise? Alas for those who trust by these means to live in the record of their age! For whether the record of their age will endure or perish depends upon something beyond the preservation and decay of towers. ”

“ The darkness gathers round, and, wan and olden,
The worn day paler grows, and dies away,
And all life's light and brightness now seem folden
Beneath the twilight's dusky mantle gray.
The old church tower, amid the shadows looming,
Stands grim and sombre in the dying light;
The trees with leafless branches shiver, moaning,
As the sad winds sigh softly through the night.
Weird looks the ruined church, where ivy creeping
Decks the old walls fast mouldering in decay;
And peace rests o'er the graves in whose calm keeping,
In quiet safety, sleeps the treasured clay. ”

“ In the noon-brightness the great Minster's tower,
Jewelled with sunbeams on its mural crown,
Rose like a visible prayer. "Behold!" he said,
"The stranger's faith made plain before mine eyes.
As yonder tower outstretches to the earth
The dark triangle of its shade alone
When the clear day is shining on its top,
So, darkness in the pathway of Man's life
Is but the shadow of God's providence,
By the great Sun of Wisdom cast thereon;
And what is dark below is light in Heaven." ”

“ In days when men suffered cheerfully for faith's sake, when queens and princes passed naturally to the throne through the blood of their nearest relations, when self-denial, conscience, and uprightness of life were reckoned as crimes, the Tower was the place of doom and death. ”

“ You find this gloomy colour everywhere: there is not a living soul here, and the silence is that of a deserted fortress; and beyond the black roofs, the black mountain, which seems to be suspended over the building, gives it mysterious solitude. It seems as if the founder must have chosen the spot, the plan, and the colours, everything, in fact, with the intention of producing a sad and solemn spectacle. You lose your gaiety before entering; you can smile no longer, you are thinking. You pause at the door of the Escurial with a kind of quaking, as if at the entrance of a dead city ”

“ I must tax the faith of my readers to believe that the old tower was actually haunted; not by the ghosts of the dead, but by the spirits of evil that are ever moving amongst the living. I must attempt with a bold hand to draw aside the mysterious veil which divides the invisible from the visible world, and though I must invoke imagination to my aid, it is imagination fluttering on the confines of truth. ”

“ As thro' the dark vaults of some moulder'd Tower
(Which, fearful to approach, the evening Hind
Circles at distance in his homeward way)
The winds breathe hollow, deem'd the plaining groan
Of prison'd spirits; with such fearful voice
Night murmur'd, and the sound thro' Chaos went.
Leapt at her call her hideous-fronted brood!
A dark behest they heard, and rush'd on earth,
Since that sad hour, in Camps and Courts adored,
Rebels from God, and Monarchs o'er Mankind! ”

“ And they shall lie apart, alone,
Through all the coming centuries;
Dwelling in silences so vast
No thought to that high tower may climb;
An austere beauty holds them fast
Beyond the boundaries of time. ”

“ The broken walls, when war is but a dream, Will be a monument to those who died; And every shell-torn scar will stand for One Whose hands were scarred, the Christ men crucified! I think, perhaps, the very morning sun, Will slant more gently through the broken tower— And, in good season, that some tender flower Will bloom beside the ruined threshold, where Folk paused before they entered in to prayer.... ”

“ Therefore, in accordance with these religious injunctions, the Towers of Silence are always situated on some hill or eminence away from the city. No expense is spared in their construction, that they may last for centuries without the possibility of polluting of the earth, or contaminating any living beings dwelling therein. ”

“ Wherever humanity has lived and wrought, we find the crumbling ruins of towers, temples, and tombs, monuments of its industry and its aspiration. Also, whatever else man may have been—cruel, tyrannous, vindictive—his buildings always have reference to religion. They bespeak a vivid sense of the Unseen and his awareness of his relation to it. Of a truth, the story of the Tower of Babel is more than a myth. Man has ever been trying to build to heaven, embodying his prayer and his dream in brick and stone. ”

“ As the personal punishment and forgiveness of God seek and find the sinner himself in the depths of his being and to the utmost of his activity, so these things, Towers of Siloam, Armageddons, plague and pestilence, search out our corporate sin and sinfulness, reach the community of sinners in their interaction. By pain and sorrow for all, they bring to light both the sins and the shortcomings of each. Our responsibility for Armageddon extends over the devastation it has wrought, as the responsibility of those builders of the tower made the deaths of the eighteen it killed their own work. ”

“ That tower is the bad part of the dream where horrors accumulate and you struggle to cry out, while a spell holds you silent. In the days when Aigues Mortes was not a dream, but a terrible reality to the prisoners of that cruel tower, how many anguished cries must have broken the spell; cries from hideous little dungeons like rat-holes, cries from the far heights of the tower where women and children starved and were forgotten! ”

“ There was no arguing now with my fear; it was taking command of me; the next instant, had the man not surmised my thoughts by some clairvoyant perception, I would have left the dolorous strangers to their fate and dashed pellmell down the tower stairs.
"Hold, monsieur," his voice detained me. "It is growing late—we need a light."
And then, with startled eyes, I witnessed one of the eeriest, one of the most inexplicable incidents of all. Suddenly, though I had seen no lantern, there was a light in the room! ”

“ The watchman, drowsily pacing the streets in the small hours, saw his shadow move athwart the furnace glare in his tower, and other shadows seemed at the moment to flit about it—shadows that could be thrown by no tangible form, yet that had a grotesque likeness to the human kind. ”

“ The ruins of the Iron Tower smoking to the sky, and the torn and tumbled masses of masonry about it, showed monstrous in the gloom as fragments of old chaos; and from them and from the riven earth beneath steamed up pungent fumes as of brimstone burning. Ever busily, back and forth through those sulphurous vapours, obscene birds of the night flitted a weary round, and bats on leathern wing, fitfully and dimly seen in the uncertain mirk, save when their passage brought them dark against the moon. ”

“ Sense of distance gone—far is near and near is far. No light—no glass—see that steeple—that tower—window—can hear—Roderick Usher—am mad or going mad—the thing is stirring and fumbling in the tower.
I am it and it is I—I want to get out . . . must get out and unify the forces . . . it knows where I am . . .
I am Robert Blake, but I see the tower in the dark. There is a monstrous odour . . . senses transfigured . . . boarding at that tower window cracking and giving way . ”