The Blasphemous Finger

That cruel man [Aletes] undid the pouch and shook out his mantle and--"To mortal war (he said) I thee defy"--and said it with gesture so impious and fierce that he seemed to open the closed temple of Janus. When he opened the pouch it seemed that he drew from it insane rage and discord fierce, and that the great torch of Alecto and Megaera burned in his dreadful eyes. Such perhaps was that giant of old who raised against Heaven the lofty structure of error: and with similar gesture watched Babel lift up her façade and threaten the stars.

Torquato Tasso, Jerusalem Delivered

Over their irregular roofs would fall throughout the seasons, the shadows of time-eaten buttresses, of broken and lofty turrets, and, most enormous of all, the shadow of the Tower of Flints. This tower, patched unevenly in black ivy, arose like a mutilated finger from among the fists of knuckled masonry and pointed blasphemously at heaven.

Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan