Tower

“ High to the clouds yon spiry tower ascend?
And starting from the umbrageous avenue
Spread the rich pile, magnificent to view?
Enter! From the arched portal look again,
Back on the lessening woods and distant plain!
Ascend the steps! The high and fretted roof
Is woven by some elfin hand aloof;
Whilst from the painted windows' long array
A mellow light is shed as not of day. ”

“ There is a stern round tower of other days, Firm as a fortress, with its fence of stone, Such as an army's baffled strength delays, Standing with half its battlements alone, And with two thousand years of ivy grown, The garland of eternity, where wave The green leaves over all by time o'erthrown: What was this tower of strength? within its cave What treasure lay so locked, so hid?—A woman's grave. ”

“ The old tower, standing in the midst of lonely, red plough-lands far from the highway, is at first only the convenient place where the young peasant studies astronomy; but as you read you feel the change coming; the tower is transmuted, glorified; every stone of it is aglow with mystic light, it is made the abode of the Lover and the Beloved; it is seen to be a symbol of Love, of an ecstasy remote, and passionate, and eternal, dwelling far from the ways of men. ”

“ Tower set square to the storms of air and change of season that glooms and glows,
Wall and roof of it tempest-proof, and equal ever to suns and snows,
Bright with riches of radiant niches and pillars smooth as a straight stem grows. ”

“ On raising your head you see a kind of dome, formed by the interior of the tower of which we have already spoken; it is a gulf of sculptures, arabesques, statues, little columns, ribs, lancets, and pendentives—enough to give you a vertigo. If you looked at it for two years, you would not see it all. It is as crowded together as the leaves of a cabbage, and fenestrated like a fish-slice; it is as gigantic as a pyramid and as delicate as a woman’s ear-ring, and you cannot understand how such a piece of filigree-work has remained suspended in the air for so many centuries. ”

“ Imagine a tower of marble, its sides encircled with decorated arcading, perfectly straight, like an ornamental jam pot, rising to a height of one hundred and eighty feet, and leaning fourteen feet out of the perpendicular, with a top story a little less in diameter than the rest of the tower, but with neither battlements or pinnacles atop. ”

“ The long, finely weathered, leaden roof, and the great square tower, gravely magnificent, emphatic from the first view of it over the grey down above the hop-gardens, the gently-watered meadows, dwarf now everything beside; have the bigness of nature's work, seated up there so steadily amid the winds, as rain and fog and heat pass by. ”

“ A tower may, indeed, have a kind of buttress, a projection, or subordinate tower at each of its angles; but these are to its main body like the satellites to a shaft, joined with its strength, and associated in its uprightness, part of the tower itself: exactly in the proportion in which they lose their massive unity with its body and assume the form of true buttress walls set on its angles, the tower loses its dignity. ”

“ Every now and then from one of the hills you get a glimpse of the square red tower, massive and battlemented, rising among the grey of its ilexes, beckoning one across a ridge or two and a valley; then disappearing again, engulfed in the oak woods, green in summer, copper-coloured in winter; to reappear, but on the side you least expected it, plume of ilexes, battlements of tower, as you twisted along the high-lying vineyards and the clusters of umbrella pines fringing the hill-tops ”

“ One has not the slightest uneasiness lest the tower should fall, or any sense of a desire to have it propped up. One can see that it sustains itself, or rather is drawn upwards, as by some power above, and victory is already visible.
All the higher art of building is to me symbolical, and is interesting merely from the divine or human life which it represents. Thus the body of the ecclesiastical structure, appears to me like an image of the supplicating or the worshiping congregation; the church tower or towers, are its extended hands. ”

“ A tower!—at such an hour, when the easements of all the senses are opened wide upon eternity, this perfume not only satisfies the desiring and aspiring sense, but, with all its unsearched, undiscovered powers, builds for us here upon the shore a specular tower and, more, a palace lovely and shadowy, where the mind roves slowly and at ease, saluting vaguely apprehended shapes, finding now long lost memories of men and things which time has locked against a thousand keys, and now bold hopes and unexpected consolations. ”

“ Hard by, upon the summit of the hill, stands the gray tower that overlooks the surrounding region and constantly symbolises, to eyes both far and near, the perpetual peace of which it is at once guardian and image. All around the spot tall trees give shade and music, as the sun streams on their branches and the wind murmurs in their leaves. ”

“ The old church tower, clad in a ghostly garb of pure cold white, again rose up before them, and a few moments brought them close beside it. A venerable building--grey, even in the midst of the hoary landscape. ”

“ Add to this the half-light, the thronging armies of sculptured figures, the mad profusion of design splashed as impartially upon the undersides of the stone window-slabs as upon the door-beam of the threshold—add, most abhorrent of all, the slippery sliminess of the walls worn smooth by naked men, and you will understand that the tower is not a soothing place to visit. ”

“ Thou, in the daily building of thy tower,—
Whether in fierce and sudden spasms of toil,
Or through dim lulls of unapparent growth,
Or when the general work 'mid good acclaim
Climbed with the eye to cheer the architect,—
Didst ne'er engage in work for mere work's sake—
Hadst ever in thy heart the luring hope
Of some eventual rest a-top of it,
Whence, all the tumult of the building hushed,
Thou first of men mightst look out to the East:
The vulgar saw thy tower, thou sawest the sun. ”

“ No picture from the gallery of a high tower could have been more beautiful than that strange land with the wild reefs lying about it and the rollers cascading over them, and the black glens above which we stood, and the great circle of the water like some measureless basin which the whole earth bounded. ”

“ The walls, from the ground to the highest point, are all fastened with iron braces, so that the hollow four-cornered pillars hold fast together; but often in a storm the tall, slender tower sways to and fro like a shaken tree. ”

“ Thro’ ’whelming winds, thro’ sun and rain,
Have lived these lichened stones,
And that brief tower upreared by those
Whose dread was from the deep,—
In strife their strength, in peace repose,
Their guardian now in sleep.
VII.
Thine eyes, old tower, have scanned the scroll
And palimpsest of Earth,
And fain would we thy thoughts unroll
Thro’ years of bliss or dearth,
For thou from thy calm height dost look
With sage, dispassionate eye,
To where the star of day-dawn shook
Within a youthful sky.
VIII.
We deem thee old ”

“ As one descends Tower Hill, the eye takes in the whole immense and hoary mass, fit emblem of the stormy and tempestuous times in which each separate tower arose. Like black shadows of the past casting their gloom over the present, rise the lofty turrets above the roofs of modern buildings. ”

“ There is no such thing as a roof in any part; towers, hall, kitchen, all are open to the sky. One round tower, directly overhanging the railway, is so shattered by the falling away of the lower part, that you can look quite up into it and through it, while sitting in the cars; and yet it has stood thus, without falling into complete ruin, for more than two hundred years. I think that it was in this tower that we found the castle oven, an immense cavern, big enough to bake bread for an army. ”

“ For that is the note of this west front and of this great tower, rising in stage upon stage of masonry until the great blocks of stone, dwarfed by distance, look like so many courses of grey brick. So does a child build up towers and castles of wooden blocks. ”

“ In the disturbed times of the city, every large edifice was a fortress, and every powerful family had its tower. By and by the possession of such a building became a mark of splendour and distinction; and as, at last, a perpendicular tower was a common and every-day thing, an oblique one was built. Both architect and owner have obtained their object: the multitude of slender, upright towers are just looked at, and all hurry to see the leaning one. ”

“ High mountainous ridges, the castles of nature, tower on every side, whose bosoms sometimes display the naked grey rock encircled with fern and heath, and, at other times, excellent verdure. But no cultivated field greets the eye, and the solemn stillness which reigns around is only broken by the gentle murmuring of the rivulet. The situation of the old tower is well chosen, as, from the direction in which the hills run, a sort of circle is formed, which not only screens it from the north and east winds, but could easily debar all intercourse with the neighbouring country. ”

“ People are occasionally met with in this world very like that old tower—rough and weather-beaten on the outside, yet with warm hearts and genial dispositions, cheering and encouraging the wanderer, blessings to all with whom they come into contact. ”

“ In gazing with astonishment upon the forest of pinnacles and thousands of marble statues, together with millions of rich ornaments and endless works of carved marble, the great tower, with its lofty summit crowned with a colossal statue, one would fail to notice any deficiency or lack in its completion ”

“ It is a forest of campaniles, chimneys, sky-lights, domes, and towers, in lace-work and open-work, twisted according to a caprice which excludes neither harmony nor unity, and which ornaments with the Gothic F the salamanders and also the mosaics of slate imitating marble,—a singular poverty in the midst of so much wealth. The beautiful open-worked tower of the large staircase dominates the entire mass of pinnacles and steeples, and bathes in the blue sky its colossal fleur-de-lis, the last point of the highest pinnacle among pinnacles, the highest crown among all crowns.... ”

“ Taken by itself, the tower is, both externally and internally, admirable, from the elegance of its form, and the richness of its details; but it jars with the rest of the building.
Placing this tower in the background, we will now repair to the west front. Here nothing is required to be added, or taken away, to afford the eye a feast as perfect as grace, symmetry, grandeur, and lightness, all combined, are capable of producing. Nothing can exceed the beauty of this front taken as a whole. ”

“ The superb tower is built of freestone and mortar in such a curious manner that, though it contains two staircases in its interior, each flight containing 107 steps, people can ascend to the top and go down again without seeing one another. This elaborate tower measures fifty-four cubits from its foundations to the upper part of the open dome, to which the priest, who calls to prayers, turns his back, as he perambulates the projecting balcony, whose elegant balustrade surrounds the four walls like a graceful ring. ”

“ And if that Los had Dot built me a tower upon a rock
I must have died in the dark desart among noxious worms
How shall I flee how shall I flee into the tower of Los
My feet are turned backward & my footsteps slide in clay
35 And clouds are closd around my tower my arms labour in vain
Does not the God of waters in the wracking Elements
Love those who hate rewarding with hate the Loving Soul ”

“ A mouldy tower within, and like a neglected washhouse. A rope comes through the beamed roof, and a man in the corner pulls it and clashes the bell—a whity-brown man, whose clothes were once black—a man with flue on him, and cobweb. ”

“ At every step the aërial pinnacles of shattered stone group into new combinations of effect, and tower above the lofty yet level walls, as the distant mountains change their aspect to one travelling rapidly along the plain.... ”

“ Our hands are hot and raw with the stones we have laid, We have built a tower of stone high into the sky, We have built a city of towers. ”

“ An enormous octagonal tower arises from the centre of the strange pile of buildings, which is in the form of a cross with arms of equal length. Pinnacle and gargoyles, moulding and ornaments, all clashing and at war with each other, are stuck on anywhere and everywhere ”

“ A mysterious activity continues within the towering white shell. But for us who pass in the street the engaging miracle is practically accomplished. There remains a tower to fit on—a pretty white ornament that will beckon gracefully to the clouds. ”

“ So, after some difficulty with our coachman, and being stopped at one church which would not answer our purpose in any respect, we were at last set down by one which looked authentic; embowered in mossy elms, with a most ancient and goblin yew tree, an ivy-mantled tower, all perfect as could be. ”

“ At the western end is a spacious round tower, the inside of which forms an elegant and singular entrance into the church, from which it is not separated by close walls, but merely by arches. The whole edifice within has an uncommon and noble aspect. ”

“ The tower itself is of two stages, with two two-light windows in each stage; the windows are transomed in each face, and the lower tier is canopied; each angle is rounded off with an octagonal turret and the whole structure is a marvellous example of architectural harmony, and in every way a work of transcendent beauty. ”