Shriek

“ From within the tent there came now a frantic shriek of terror. The next moment, the foremost among the crowd had pushed aside the gaudy draperies, and that one shriek was answered by a dozen awesome, horrified curses.
There was the witch at last. A poor trembling girl, scarce out of her teens, with beautiful, delicate features, and an abundance of golden hair falling round her shoulders; her mysterious veil—a bit of showy tinsel—lying in a heap on the floor. Nothing supernatural or devilish about her, surely. ”

“ And what woke me? The ghost of a cry. The ghost of one terrific shriek, which shriek was followed by the ghost of the howl of a dog: a long dismal woeful howl, such as a dog gives when a person's dead. ”

“ It is the cottonwood trees falling to earth. Shriek! Shriek! Shriek! It is the Demon racing along the plain and uprooting even the blades of grass. Shock! Shock! Shock! It is the Fury flinging his fiery bolts into the bosom of the earth.—
"The Demon and the Fury." ”

“ The camp was pitched and the rest of the day given up to writing voluminous accounts of the marvel, and correcting astronomical tables to fit it. Toward midnight a demoniacal shriek was heard, then a clattering and rumbling noise, and the next instant a vast terrific eye shot by, with a long tail attached, and disappeared in the gloom, still uttering triumphant shrieks.
The poor damp laborers were stricken to the heart with fright, and stampeded for the high grass in a body. But not the scientists. ”

“ The graceful motion and gorgeous plumage demand our admiration, until the creature, becoming accustomed to our presence, raises his voice in a piercing call, something between a hoot and a shriek, which causes us to cover our ears. ”

“ Shrike, shrīk, n. a genus of passerine birds which prey on insects and small birds, impaling its prey on thorns—hence called the Butcher-bird. [Ice. skríkja; cf. Shriek.]
Shrill, shril, adj. piercing: sharp: uttering an acute sound.—adjs. ”

“ Wherever that shriek came from, it was not from the skull, for I had the box in my hand when I heard the noise, and here it is now; so we have proved definitely that the screams are produced by something else. I've no doubt I shall find out some day what makes them. Some crevice in the wall, of course, or a crack in a chimney, or a chink in the frame of a window. That's the way all ghost stories end in real life. Do you know, I'm jolly glad I thought of going up and bringing it down for you to see, for that last shriek settles the question. ”

“ Shriek cut ear and brain with slivering
[Pg 89] Stings of terror, sin, unrest—
Christ! it raised the dead
Out of the moat's black bed.
Nine times—and then across the thickening reek a rusty draw was dropped;
Thro portcullis sped a quickening
Shadow past to where with sickening
Feet, befixed by awe I stopped—
There she laughed a laugh
No devil's soul could quaff.
I swear its clamor tore the stuttering leaves from shrub and shrunken tree ”

“ The Mother, and the frighted Virgin side;
With Shrieks, and doleful Cries they rend the Air:
Their Shrieks confounded with the Din of War,
With clashing Arms, and Groanings of the Slain,
They grieve unpitied, and unheard complain. ”

“ If Heaven did appoint them to it, Heaven, for certain, will at last justify them; and in the mean while, for a generation or two, the same Heaven (I can believe) has appointed that Earth shall pretty unanimously condemn them. The shrieks, the foam-lipped curses of mistaken mankind, in such case, are mankind's one security against over-promptitude (which is so dreadfully possible) on the part of surgical neighbors. ”

“ There had been some sort of bond between them till the vision of death rose before each shrinking soul. Shoulder to shoulder in crime, they fell apart as their doom approached, and rushing, shrieking, each man for himself, they one and all sought to escape by doors, windows, or any outlet which promised release from this fatal spot. ”

“ Then the Sorcerer began to sing; and his voice was like liquid gold. It made one think of all the most beautiful things in the world: of the dawn in the sky, of great birds with white wings, of rushing waters, of prancing horses and waving plumes, of the deep velvet sky with its armies of stars.
“Oh, how lovely! How wonderful!” cried the Princesses. “Oh, sir! where did you learn those songs?”
The Sorcerer smiled. “It is this little guitar,” he said, holding it up. “It is bewitched. One has only to strike the strings and the song comes out of it. ”

“ It was hard to people this solitude with rushing columns of cavalry, and stir its torpid pulses with the shouts of victors, the shrieks of the wounded, and the flash of banner and steel above the surging billows of war. A desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action. ”

“ Each dark piercing eye with a purer light shone,
Passion, anger and feuds were entirely unknown.
And the love, the apostle once preached, by God’s grace,
Inspired every heart and lit up each face.
Soon we neared the vast—the magnificent shrine,
Where once to base man was paid homage divine ”

“ The spirit in the box began to burn again by itself, and the hall was light as before.
"Who is amongst us?" exclaimed the sorcerer, terrified, casting a look of horror on the assemblage; "I did not want thee." The figure advanced with noiseless and majestic steps directly up to the altar, stood on the satin Carpet over against us, and touched the crucifix. The first apparition was seen no more. ”

“ And come he peaceful or in ravening wrath
Spurred on his path, ’twere best, in any case,
Damsels, to cling unto this altar-mound
Made sacred to their gods of festival,—
A shrine is stronger than a tower to save,
A shield that none may cleave. ”

“ I know a shrine more rich than Plutus' fane.
⁠An altar fragrant with celestial dew,
Where wavering souls their virgin faiths regain
⁠And energies renew.
I know a garden fair and free,
Where life yet wears, unfadingly,
⁠Lost Eden's roseate hue! ”

“ From shrines where the hymns are the weeping And wailing and gnashing of teeth, Where the palm is the pang never sleeping, Where the worm never dying is the wreath; Where all fruits save wickedness wither, Whence naught save despair can be gleaned— Come hither! come hither! come hither! Fall'n angel, fell sprite, and foul fiend. Come hither! the bands are all broken, And loosed in hell's innermost womb, When the spell unpronounceable spoken Divides the unspeakable gloom. ”

“ She laid her harp upon the shrine, and to her surprise the strings began to quiver of their own accord. An electric current united them to the harps in the heavenly temple, and they vibrated in exquisite harmonies the echo of the harmonies above.
And with the heavenly strains, came a voice divine and human, mighty as the sound of many waters, yet soft and near as a whisper in her ear:
"Here all ruins are repaired, the enemy cannot enter here, but here thou shalt dwell for ever." ”

“ Nature with flowers shall deck the shrine,
And be at dewy eve's decline,
A weeper there.—
Dark steward! lock with jealous fear
The secrets of thy dreamless bed,
For thou, when ruin whelms the sphere,
The strong archangel's voice must hear,
"Restore the dead." ”

“ Let us not dash the image from the altar, nor quench the fire at the shrine, before we have another idol and another shrine to give to the old worshippers, who must worship still. Such reckless iconoclasm is too dangerous. ”

“ But there is the inmost shrine of all within, where the darkness broods, lit at intervals by the shining of a divine light, that glimmers on the ark and touches the taper wings of the adoring angels. The contents indeed of the sacred chest are of the simplest ”

“ Though Ceres may spread All her gifts on the shrine, Though the glass may be red With the blush of the vine, What boots—if the while Fall no spark on the hearth; If the heart do not smile With the instinct of mirth?— From the clouds, from God's breast Must our happiness fall, 'Mid the blessed, most blest Is the moment of all! Since creation began All that mortals have wrought, All that's godlike in man Comes—the flash of a thought! For ages the stone In the quarry may lurk, An instant alone Can suffice to the work ”

“ Only the grown men, initiated into the mysteries of the shrine when they came of age at the tattooing ceremony, were aware that the strange, buzzing, whirring noise was nothing more or less than the cry of the bull-roarer. ”

“ The shrine, of white marble and gold, gleaming in the light of golden lamps, stands under a rough arch of the natural rock, from the side of which hangs a heavy fragment of a granite pillar, suspended, as the devout believe, by divine power. ”

“ If we do not rebel against it, if we even consent to accept it, then it transforms itself after the manner of sorcerers in the old-time fairy tales. The hideous skeleton is covered with young flesh that has a fragrance of flowers. The face that it shows is one of dazzling beauty. ”

“ But God himself cried, 'Holiday!' And she gave me both her hands.
A MAN AND HIS IMAGE All day the nations climb and crawl and pray In one long pilgrimage to one white shrine, Where sleeps a saint whose pardon, like his peace, Is wide as death, as common, as divine. His statue in an aureole fills the shrine, The reckless nightingale, the roaming fawn, Share the broad blessing of his lifted hands, Under the canopy, above the lawn. ”

“ It is built and shaped to be used exclusively as a shrine, and when the one god has been broken or stolen from the altar, the woman will dig up all the other fractured and defaced gods and ikons of her youth and weep over them, recalling in what gracious fashion this one took to incense and marigolds, and how beautiful that one was before the testing fires scorched him. ”

“ Mystic and strange are the forms within the shrines, and to man it is not given to know the meaning of them; in one is a human head, in another the wing of a bird, in the third the hind part of a lion. Here also lives the great coiled serpent with five heads, and within his coils lies Khepera, god of resurrection. On his head he places the scarab, beneath his feet is the sign of flesh; thus does he send Life into the dead, and thus will he re-vivify Ra. For this is the farthest point of the Duat, and beyond the gate lies the way to the sunrise. ”

“ When we are as yet small children, long before the time when those two grown ladies offer us the choice of Hercules, there comes up to us a youthful angel, holding in his right hand cubes like dice, and in his left spheres like marbles. ”

“ The window towards the east on the north side of the shrine is divided into geometrical figures, each figure composed of a group of fine medallions; every group tells the story of a miracle, or series of miracles, performed by the influence of the saint. ”

“ True shrine, whose odor of sanctity is as widespread as the breeze that wanders through its open portals, and which comes so near the wants of the world that the very pigeons flutter in to homes among its rafters. ”

“ Two new young lovers seek your shrine.
Those loves of old with years grow fainter, dimmer,
But ours is warm and living and divine,
And time has not yet breathed upon its lustre,
And I am hers and she is all of mine! ”

“ I gathered in my soul the tenderness of mystic rays,
And in the Secret shrine I knelt with unknown qualms.
My soul is saddened now, and full of a longing scent,
My thought is just a taper of feeble light that shone
Quiveringly in the human sconce, impure and bent
A taper upon the timeless altar of the Great Unknown . . . ”

“ Three men are kneeling or bending down beneath the shrine as it passes; cripples, they are, all three have beautiful faces, the one who is apparently the worst cripple of the three, (his legs and feet are horribly twisted) , has especially a wonderfully delicate face, timid and shrinking, though faithful: behind the shrine come the people, walking slowly together with reverent faces; a woman with a little child holding her hand are the last figures in this history of St. ”

“ To baulk the witches of their prey it is in some places customary to keep a light burning in the chamber at night, and to affix at the door of the house the image of a saint, hanging to it a rosary and an unravelled napkin ”

“ She and the Holy Child wear crowns of gold, and glitter with diamonds and embroidered garments, their faces of ebony shining in the blaze of jewelry and tinsel finery. Before them, worshippers are always kneeling, counting their beads. At the other shrines others are bowing and murmuring their prayers. Painted skeletons of celebrated saints lie exposed in marble shrines. ”

“ Thus the hawk, fowl, eel, shark, and nearly every other animal became the shrine of some deity, which the worshipper of that deity might not eat, so that some were even tabued from eating human flesh, the shrine of their god being a man. ”

“ Where men a-gaze at the shrine finally know them divine.
Ay! though To-morrow become the Wind in the Tree of the Ages,
Dust of my body to spread wide with the dust of the dead,
In thy golden procession eternally singing and dancing,
Let what may be the rest, stand I for ever expressed. ”

“ Returning to the region, from which we had descended, we next visited, in succession, a series of small shrines, representing the various objects of adoration through Egypt, and thus furnishing to the Priest an occasion for explaining the mysterious nature of animal worship, and the refined doctrines of theology that lay veiled under its forms. Every shrine was consecrated to a particular faith, and contained a living image of the deity which it adored. ”

“ For the secret is not to be borne. I have looked into the shrine and I still live, but that is because of my prayers before I touched the jewel that released the little panel. Woe is me that I prayed! For had I not prayed, I might now be dead, and therefore happy, instead of slowly drowning in the welter of misery that rises ever higher about me.
A holy man of India gave the shrine to a Christian bishop who had done him a great service.
"Ask and you shall receive," he said; but he fell upon his knees and begged release from his promise when the bishop demanded this little teak-wood shrine. ”

“ Even the god’s shrine is thoroughly perambulatory, and is dedicated to the god of the earth. Many of the shanties are lofty erections, but the walls and roofs consist entirely of mats hung on to poles, which are merely tied together and stuck into the ground. ”