Shrine

“ 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. ”

“ Sacred texts from the classics are everywhere sculptured on the rocks, and it is in a dark recess, resting on a ledge of solid stone, with a frowning precipice of great depth in front, that this remarkable shrine has been constructed. ”

“ 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! ”

“ THE RELIC TAKEN, WHAT AVAILS THE SHRINE?
The relic taken, what avails the shrine?
The locket, pictureless? O heart of mine,
Art thou not worse than that,
Still warm, a vacant nest where love once sat? ”

“ O welcome wayside calvary,
⁠O calm, secluded shrine,
⁠O sweet retreat of mine,
⁠Whose holy peace brings blissful eucrasy!
————
Another shrine for me there is,
⁠Recessed, inviolate, within
The ruby chamber of my Love’s pure heart ”

“ The lamp still stood burning upon the crystal shrine—the cross lay where the hands of the young mourner had placed it, and the cold image beneath wore the same tranquil look, as if resigned to the solitude of death—of all lone things the loneliest. Remembering the lips that I had seen kiss that cross, and kindling with the recollection, I raised it passionately to my own;—but, at the same moment, I fancied the dead eyes met mine, and, saddened in the midst of my ardour, I replaced the cross upon the shrine. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ We pass to the north aisle of the choir and proceed to the ambulatory, processional path, or retro-choir. Here, at the back of the altar, was the chief shrine, where the relics of some great saint were preserved under a gorgeous cover decorated with gold and silver and precious jewels, to which crowds of pilgrims flocked, and there prayed and gazed upon the wondrous shrine, and made their offerings. The steps and pavement leading to the shrine often still show by their worn condition the evidence of the tread of countless numbers of pilgrims. ”

“ 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 . . . ”

“ On the wooden benches, kneeling, are ladies, servants, colored women, in silent prayer. One approaches the lighted, picturesque shrine through the formal rows of tombs, and comes there into an atmosphere of peace and faith. It is believed that miracles are daily wrought here, and one notices in all the gardeners, keepers, and attendants of the place the accent and demeanor of simple faith. ”

“ 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." ”

“ Yet still the vast shrine and the temple
Seem to speak of a mightier race
Than ours, which exists by the minute,
And builds but by contract and steam,
Till the spirit has no where to wander,
And the heart has no rest for its dream. ”

“ To visit her grave in the beautiful hillside cemetery outside Lisieux, and watch the endless stream of pilgrims who come on every day of the year from all parts of the world to ask her help, to deposit letters explaining their needs, and lay on her tomb for blessing the clothes of babies or the food of the sick, is to understand what the shrine of a mediæval saint must have been like. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Now, motionless, in this little shrine must hold:
No more to wanton in the eye of day;
Or to the breeze your changeful hues display:
For ever still inanimate, and cold.
Poor, poor last relic of an angel's face! ”

“ 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! ”

“ And it seemed to come to me that there was a shrine everywhere if we would only look for it—that God has put a shrine in every heart, only we are so blind—that every one can make their own surroundings beautiful and good and true, no matter where they are, or how poor, or how rich—and if they live like that they must be good and true themselves. ”

“ And what a shrine it is! An isolated tabernacle set upon a rock in a solitary place, and amid surroundings of the greatest beauty and impressiveness; shut out of the world and shut in with nature. The cross at the head of the bridge records the miraculous escape of a girl long ago who, whilst attempting to pick the fairest flowers for a chaplet to place upon the Madonna's head or lay upon the altar, fell into the ravine, a distance of over one hundred and fifty feet, and yet escaped serious injury when death seemed certain. ”

“ Amidst this wreck, where thou hast made a shrine And temple more divinely desolate, Among thy mightier offerings here are mine, Ruins of years—though few, yet full of fate: If thou hast ever seen me too elate, Hear me not; but if calmly I have borne Good, and reserved my pride against the hate Which shall not whelm me, let me not have worn This iron in my soul in vain—shall THEY not mourn? ”

“ And thou, great hallow'd dome, in ruin spread,
Again shall lift sublime thy sacred head.
But ah! with weeping eyes, the ancients view
A faint resemblance of the old in you.
No more th' effulgent glory of thy God
Speaks awful answers from the mystic cloud:
No more thine altars blaze with fire divine,
And Heav'n has left thy solitary shrine.
And now, at length, the fated term of years
The world's desire have brought, and lo! the God appears. ”

“ Broad steps flecked with colour from the stained-glass window opposite lead down to the dim little crypt where she sleeps, and one hanging lamp burns in the twilight and the silence which seems too deep and too far below the surface of the life of the moment to be disturbed by the irrelevant steps and voices of visitors, or by the troops of little girls who come under the care of a nun to visit the shrine. ”

“ Descending, we approach the central shrine by steps of very fine sculpture and artistic form and are told by our retinue of attendants that curiosity can go no farther nor veneration for that matter, as the key is lost! ”

“ There is a central shrine, with only one light in it. The darkness of the shrine symbolises the darkness of the world, of life and death and being. For life is a darkness, a whirlpool of dark waters. We stand on its edge, but we do not understand it. It is dark, but light there must be; one great light. So we show this certainty by the symbol of the one light in the shrine, in the very heart of our temples. ”

“ Before thy glory and thy might
I feel myself a Pagan still,
And in my spirit's inmost shrine
I half adore thee as divine.
THE HOME-COMING FROM ROME Make haste! There is but one more turning!
The horses cannot go too fast,
So eagerly our hearts are yearning
To see the longed-for home at last!
Here is the shrine, the lamp still burning,
Beside the vineyard's massive wall;
And see, to welcome our returning,
The banners on the flagstaffs tall! ”

“ 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." ”

“ Another soft and scented page,
Fill'd with more honied words!
What motives to a pilgrimage
A shrine like mine affords!
I know, before I break the seal,
The words that I shall find:—
"The wound which you alone can heal—
So fair, yet so unkind!" ”

“ From the great double temple, which is the crowning glory of the hill, Leslie and his companions looked down upon shrine after shrine, broad flights of steps stained with the soft amber and pink of lantern light, and the [pg 242] colored crowd ever shifting, and murmurous as the sea. ”

“ You know that at every moment, in these woods and on these hills, where one would think that nobody had ever penetrated, one suddenly sees the white dome of a shrine that contains the bones of a humble, solitary marabout, which was scarcely visited from time to time, even by the most confirmed believers, who had come from the neighboring villages with a wax candle in their pocket, to set up before the tomb of the saint. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ She can hardly stand for the terror of the sight she has seen; the sacred shrine polluted by the presence of a man in suppliant garb, bunch of olives and tufts of wool, his sword yet reeking with a recent murder ”

“ 'We two will stand beside that shrine,
Occult, withheld, untrod,
Whose lamps are stirred continually
With prayer sent up to God;
And see our old prayers, granted, melt
Each like a little cloud. ”

“ In the center of the extensive area of the Rotunda rises the carved and decorated marble shrine over what is supposed to be the tomb of Christ. The top of it was on a level with us. Wild-looking men, with their clothes disordered, and their caps and tarbûshes torn off—some with their long hair streaming, others with their shaven heads exposed—were performing a sort of gallopade round it. ”

“ The shrines of our forefathers’ worship have crept back into favour by hiding themselves in the voluminous draperies of History or Art. Our appetite for shows is omnivorous, and we don’t object to a shrine if it has a Gothic moulding sufficiently “cute,” or a Byzantine roof, or some other attraction—are we not pilgrims of Art?—though if called upon to define our roof or moulding many of us might be considerably nonplussed, taking refuge in describing one as a “thing with a round top,” and the other as “a sort of stone trimming, don’t you know.” ”

“ At night it is always closed; a hermit dwells in a little shrine within its range, and beggars of all kinds nestle beneath its crumbling arches: the latter had lit a fire on the arena, and a gentle wind bore down the smoke to the ground, so that the lower portion of the ruins was quite hid by it, while above the vast walls stood out in deeper darkness before the eye. As we stopped at the gate to contemplate the scene through the iron gratings, the moon shone brightly in the heavens above. ”

“ Pottering up steps that can be taken at one bound is very well for peasant pilgrims whose shrine is their bourne, and their kneecaps the footing stumps. But for us two life begins up there. Onward, and everywhere around, when we two are together, is our shrine. ”

“ Inside the shrine the high-priest never ceases to intone the Granth, nor the other priest to fan it, nor the musicians to tinkle and thrum; and in and out that holy place fly clouds of pigeons, perching on the canopy and fouling the growing pile of offerings before the ottoman. At every turn you come on little shrines with books on silken cushions and prostrate adorers. A calf, unchecked, is trying to lick the gold off the great gateway. ”

“ A vast pile of bricks and earth, with here and there a spire still rearing itself to the skies, marks the spot where once stood a shrine before which thousands were wont to prostrate themselves in superstitious adoration. ”

“ Within the most holy place of this vast sanctuary,――beneath the very center of that wonderful dome, which rises in such unequaled vastness above it, redounding far more to the glory of the man who reared it, than of the God whose altar it covers,――in the vaulted crypt which lies below the pavement, is a shrine, before which a hundred lamps are constantly burning, and over which the prayers of thousands are daily rising. ”

“ Below them were fields and orchards, all bare boughs and brown furrows, and little houses and gardens. The shrine was a kind of tiny chapel with no front wall—just a place for people to stop and rest in and wish to be good. ”

“ Build me a shrine, and I could kneel
To Rural Gods, or prostrate fall;
Did I not see, did I not feel,
That one GREAT SPIRIT governs all.
O heav'n permit that I may lie
Where o'er my corse green branches ware;
And those who from life's tumult fly
With kindred feelings press my grave. ”