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Waft   /wɑft/   Listen
Waft

noun
1.
A long flag; often tapering.  Synonyms: pennant, pennon, streamer.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Waft" Quotes from Famous Books



... strongly sweeps, this dust above, Into the high ancestral spaces. If there be airy spirits near, 'Twixt Heaven and Earth on potent errands fleeing, Let them drop down the golden atmosphere, And bear me forth to new and varied being! Yea, if a magic mantle once were mine, To waft me o'er the world at pleasure, I would not for the costliest stores of treasure— Not for ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

... causeway again, and that a rider in a cloak, and a Gytrash-like Newfoundland dog, might be again apparent: I saw only the hedge and a pollard willow before me, rising up still and straight to meet the moonbeams; I heard only the faintest waft of wind roaming fitful among the trees round Thornfield, a mile distant; and when I glanced down in the direction of the murmur, my eye, traversing the hall-front, caught a light kindling in a window: it reminded me that I was ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... me now? What ails me now? I feel my heart dilating like the sea when it swells before the storm. An overwhelming weakness bows me down, and the warm atmosphere seems to waft towards me the odour of hair. Still, there is no trace of a ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert

... deep and hoarse like the baying of distant hounds, and beneath it, in plaintive minor, ran the sighing of the leaves before his footsteps. Through the wood came the vague smells of autumn—a reminiscent waft of decay, the reek of mould on rotting logs, the effluvium of overblown flowers, the healthful smack of the pines. By dawn frost would grip the vegetation and the wind would lull; but now it blew, strong and clear, ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow

... is shaking The dew from her wing, And the clover forsaking, Soars upwards to sing, In rapture outpouring Her anthem of love, Where angels adoring Waft praises above. ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... and deep in the water. We perceived they rowed, the wind being against them; that they saw our ship, and did their utmost to make us see them. We immediately spread our ancient, to let them know we saw them, and hung a waft out, as a signal for them to come on board, and then made more sail, standing directly to them. In little more than half-an-hour we came up with them; and took them all in, being no less than sixty-four men, women, and children; for there were ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe

... shining tremulous, like waves of fire, in the glare reflected from the burning land; and even where the water failed, the stony course of the exhausted rivulet was a barrier against the march of the conflagration. Thus, unless the wind, now still, should rise, and waft some sparks to the parched combustible herbage immediately around us, we were saved from the fire, and our work might yet ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... Scotland! know'st thou thy poor Queen's distress, And canst thou hear my wailing and my woe? May the soft wind that o'er thy hills doth blow Waft thee these ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft

... blindness— 100 A Paradise of Ignorance, from which Knowledge was barred as poison. But behold What these superior beings are or were; Or, if it irk thee, turn thee back and till The earth, thy task—I'll waft thee there ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... harmless Africans to war, and stain their fields with blood: you keep constant hostile ferment in their territories, in order to procure captives for your uses; some you purchase with a few trifling articles, and waft to distant shores to be made the instruments of ...
— Anti-Slavery Opinions before the Year 1800 - Read before the Cincinnati Literary Club, November 16, 1872 • William Frederick Poole

... to the waist and shoulders with an effect of modesty never meant by the sculptor, but not displeasing. There was an old fountain near, its stone rim and centre of rock-work green with immemorial mould, and its basin quivering between its water-plants under the soft fall of spray. At a waft of fitful breeze some leaves of early autumn fell from the trees overhead upon the elderly pair where they sat, and a little company of sparrows came and hopped about their feet. Though the square without was so all astir with festive expectation, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... shall neither wither, fade, nor fly; Pain, sickness, time, and death, they dare defy. When the pale tyrant's hand shall seal your doom, And lock your ashes in the silent tomb, These beauties shall in double lustre rise, Shine round the soul, and waft it to ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous

... waiting here only for a wind to waft me to America; but cannot leave this happy island and my friends in it without extreme regret, though I am going to a country and a people that I love. I am going from the old world to the new; and I fancy I feel like those who are leaving this world ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.

... I got one waft of light as the door opened, half from the candle on the table, half from the moonlight falling dim without. I saw something that crouched—manlike indeed, but with bearded face and head held between its shoulders—leap from the ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett

... and labor flee, Oh float ye out on this wonderful sea, From islands of spice the zephyrs blow, Swaying the galleys to and fro; Silken sails and a balmy breeze Shall waft you ...
— Poems • Marietta Holley

... Grey Abbey; and, as he presumed his attendance was required for the purpose of talking over some method of raising the wind, he obeyed the summons.—I should rather have said of raising a storm, for no gentle puff would serve to waft him ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope

... an humble place in the sanctuary, near the door. Behind the pew in which Grandma, Grandpa, and I were sitting there was one more vacant. Presently the door opened, admitting a delightful waft of fresh air, and some one entered that pew, and bowed his head forward on the desk in a ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene

... perpetually shifting places and company, with a rooted laziness, and an utter impatience of fatigue. A coach and six horses is the utmost exercise you can bear; and this only when you can fill it with such company as is best suited to your taste, and how glad would you be if it could waft you in the air to avoid jolting; while I, who am so much later in life, can, or at least could, ride five hundred miles on a trotting horse. You mortally hate writing, only because it is the thing you chiefly ought to ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various

... of a pinnace, threatens more Than Bargulus the strong Illyrian pirate.— Drones suck not eagles' blood but rob bee-hives. It is impossible that I should die By such a lowly vassal as thyself. Thy words move rage and not remorse in me. I go of message from the queen to France; I charge thee waft ...
— King Henry VI, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]

... filled, and fair the light winds blew As glad to waft him from his native home; And fast the white rocks faded from his view, And soon were lost in circumambient foam; And then, it may be, of his wish to roam Repented he, but in his bosom slept The silent thought, nor from his lips did come One word of wail, whilst ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron

... pen in general, the whole affair is resolved into one impulse—all is "passion." The winds of heaven have nothing to do, but to "waft a sigh from Indus to the Pole." The art of printing is seriously presumed to have been invented only for "some banished lover, or some captive maid." Flirtation is the grand business of life. The maiden ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various

... footpath which for some distance had followed the river, and now, turning almost at right angles, skirted a cherry orchard in late blossom. The perfume of the pink and white buds, swaying slightly in the breeze, came to us both—a waft of delicate and poignant freshness. Lady Delahaye stood still, and ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... daring infidels should seek in vain; Thence simple bards, by simple prudence taught, To this wise town by simple patrons brought, In simple manner utter simple lays, And take, with simple pensions, simple praise. Waft me, some Muse, to Tweed's inspiring stream, Where all the little Loves and Graces dream; 140 Where, slowly winding, the dull waters creep, And seem themselves to own the power of sleep; Where on the surface lead, like feathers, ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill

... have been gambling for me," said Lucien; he was quite touched by the letter. A waft of the breeze from an unhealthy country, from the land where one has suffered most, may seem to bring the odors of Paradise; and in a dull life there is an indefinable sweetness in memories of ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... blurred dream—that he was lying inert on the verandah, with Franklin and the girl lying beside him.... The house was being searched.... Then the muttering shapes were standing here. Lee felt himself being picked up. And then he was carried silently out into the darkness. The motion seemed to waft him off so that ...
— The World Beyond • Raymond King Cummings

... aspect, with their background of low, monotonous hills, and both before and behind were more lonesome hills, more dreary fields, and black masses of woodland. Not one homely roof was visible in the hard, white moonlight, nor the glimmer of a lamp, nor a waft of chimney-smoke; not even the tinkle of a sleigh-bell or a foot-step was to be heard. The silence seemed whispering to the hills. One star glimmered in the orange after-glow ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various

... light feet. He heard her shake out his dinner coat, try the pockets, heard the stealthy opening and closing of the drawers in his wardrobe. Presently the footsteps drew near to his bed. For a moment he was obliged to set his teeth. A little waft of peculiar, unanalysable perfume, half-fascinating, half-repellent, came to him with a sense of disturbing familiarity. She paused by his bedside. He felt her hand steal under the pillow, which his head scarcely touched; search the pockets of his dressing gown, search even the bed. He listened ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... and began to row might and main, whereat those aboard ship fired a gun to windward and made a waft with their ensign as much as to bid us aboard them. But I heeding no whit, they let fly a great shot at us that, falling short, plunged astern in a whirl of spray. Time and again they fired such fore-chase guns as ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol

... and fierce dragons' spleens, Have sold their fortunes at their native homes, Bearing their birthrights proudly on their backs, To make a hazard of new fortunes here. In brief, a braver choice of dauntless spirits Than now the English bottoms have waft o'er Did never ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh

... passion,) and followed by the frati of the church in black, carrying candles and dolorously chanting a hymn. Then comes the bishop in his mitre, his yellow stole upheld by two principal priests, (the curate and subcurate,) and to him his acolytes waft incense, as well as to the huge figure of the Madonna which follows. This figure is of life-size, carved in wood, surrounded by gilt angels, and so heavy that sixteen stout facchini, whose shabby ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various

... die now?" he said to himself in a low voice. "Why does not Death kiss my lips at this glorious hour of my triumph? Oh, come, Death! waft me blissfully into the other world, for in this world I am useless henceforth; my strength is gone, and my head has no more ideas. I live only ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach

... Watts-Dunton spoke carelessly, casually, of some to me illustrious figure in the past, that I had the sense of being wafted right into that past and plumped down in the very midst of it. When he spoke with reverence of this and that great man whom he had known, he did not thus waft and plump me; for I, too, revered those names. But I had the magical transition whenever one of the immortals was mentioned in the tone of those who knew him before he had put on immortality. Browning, for example, was a name deeply honoured by me. 'Browning, ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm

... cars slackened speed, came the bustle that marks the end of a journey. People were getting their light luggage together, and as Phyl was strapping the bundle that held her travelling rug and books, a waft of tepid, salt-scented air came through the compartment and on it the voice of the negro attendant rousing ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole

... looking at a form, She was listening for a tread, She could feel a waft of charm When a certain name was said; But the form, And the tread, And the charm Of name said, Were the wrong ones for her, and ever would be so, While the heritor of the right it would have saved her ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy

... to the Soul, and pleasing to the Eye But when their Voices found in Songs, of Praise, When they to God's high Throne their Anthems raise, By these harmonious Sounds, such Rapture's giv'n, Their loud Hosannas waft the Soul to Heav'n: The fourfold Parts in one bright Center meet, To form the blessed Harmony complete. Lov'd by the Good, esteemed by the Wise, To gracious Heav'n, a pleasing sacrifice. Each Note, each Part, each Voice, each Word conspire T' ...
— Over the Border: Acadia • Eliza Chase

... of eternal fire. Is there leisure for sport and business, or room for science and literature, or mood for pleasures and amenities? No: to get ourselves and our friends into the magic car of salvation, which will waft us up from the ravenous crests of the brimstone lake packed with visages of anguish, to bind around our souls the floating cord of redemption, which will draw us up to heaven, this should intensely engage every faculty. Nothing else can be admitted save ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... open my being also to the reviving influences of Nature—as on a certain evening, balmy and glorious after the rain, when the breeze seemed as if it might breathe new life, and waft me across the seas away from the land of doubt and death to some far off sphere of more than ...
— Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson • William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson

... I have never been conscious of any emotion so profound and solemn as that which possessed me during the last day of my father's life. I witnessed the expiring flame in those dread moments when time is blent with eternity, and when the last sigh seems to waft the immortal spirit into a state of existence of which no adequate conception can be formed. After all was over, and the breath of life had fled, I could not believe my senses, that the prop of my affections was gone from my love and my embrace, and ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various

... and mine For ever! Crumbled arch, crushed aqueduct, Alive with tremors in the shaggy growth Of wild-wood, crevice-sown, that triumphs there Imparting exultation to the hills! Sweep of the swathe when only the winds walk And waft my words above the grassy sea Under the blinding blue that basks o'er Rome— Hear ye not still—'Be Italy again?' And ye, what strikes the panic to your heart? Decrepit council-chambers,—where some lamp Drives the unbroken black ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons

... bond, made of Limburger cheese, which is stronger and more durable. When this is done you can tell the rich from the poor man by the smell of his money. Now-a-days many of us do not even get a smell of money, but in the good days which are coming the gentle zephyr will waft to us the able-bodied Limburger, and we shall know that ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck

... the path for thee and me, A welcome warm at the end. I waited long for thy coming, And found thee in waft ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson

... it awoke! What strange perfumes seemed to waft across from it, perfumes laden with associations of a world so different from the green world where it now was, a charming world of gay intrigue and wanton pleasure. No wonder the wind chose it so often for its partner as it danced through ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne

... me—shall I meet again The long lost object of my only love! —This hope but mine, death were release from pain; Angel of mercy! haste, and waft ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent

... Admirals, 12 of them in their murrians and corsets, and the rest all well appoynted, with foure trumpets, a drumme and a Fife, and the boate all hanged with streamers of Silke and pendants very faire, and went into the riuer and traffiqued, our man of warre lying off and on in the riuer to waft vs, but we heard no more of the Portugals. This day the Negros told vs that there were certain ships come into Hanta, which towne is about two leagues to the ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt

... served the Doge, and, anxious to relieve him from so awkward a position, she flew back to the other end of the gallery. Another key was applied to the door by which they had just entered, with the same result. Gelsomina staggered back, and sought support against the waft. ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper

... hunters lay. Ho! strike the flag-staff deep, Sir Knight; ho! scatter flowers, fair maids: Ho! gunners fire a loud salute: ho! gallants, draw your blades; Thou sun, shine on her joyously; ye breezes waft her wide; Our glorious SEMPER EADEM, the banner of our pride. The freshening breeze of eve unfurled that banner's massy fold, The parting gleam of sunshine kissed that haughty scroll of gold; Night sank upon ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various

... Bois-Rose, solemnly, "who commands the breeze to waft across the desert the fertilising seeds of the male palm to the female date-tree—God, who confides to the wind which destroys, to the devastating torrent, or to the bird of passage, the grain which is to be deposited a thousand miles from the plant that produced it—is he not also able to send ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid

... there was Molly who might be taught, and Juanita who might be visited; and Dr. Sandford who might come like a pleasant gale of wind into the midst of whatever I was about. I did not stop to think of them now, though a waft of the sunny air through the open window brought a violent rush of such images. I tried to shut them out of my head and gave myself wistfully to "three times one is three; three times two is six." Miss Pinshon helped ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell

... lightening face of the waters, circled around the lone canoe and the woman therein, and seemed to waft her forward with the God-speed of ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe

... and the windy coach. Oh, my lord, if you ever loved me let us set out to-morrow. I languish for Fareham House—my basset-table, my friends, my watermen to waft me to and fro between Blackfriars and Westminster, the mercers in St. Paul's Churchyard, the Middle Exchange. I have not bought myself anything pretty since Christmas. ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... not, the big change made in the course, to say nothing of the difference in the weather and temperature, say loudly that your long easterly run is over, and you are bound to the northward again. Soon the south-east trades will take you gently in hand, and waft you pleasurably upward to the line again, unless you should be so unfortunate as to meet one of the devastating meteors known as "cyclones" in its gyration across the Indian Ocean. After losing the trade, which signals your approach to the line once more, your guides fluctuate muchly ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen

... may not give expression In any ocean-tide, But music, like confession, Will waft thee ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... other works cause people to open their eyes and ears wide, and men aid to this effect by the great display, expense, and magnificent buildings with which they adorn them, so that everything shines and glitters. There they waft incense, they sing and ring bells, they light tapers and candles, so that nothing else can be seen or heard. For when a priest stands there in a surplice embroidered with gilt, or a layman continues all day upon his knees in church, that is regarded as a most precious work which ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther

... China waft an occasional despairing epistle from Little Germany, but they find me as cold as a snow bank on the north side of a mountain. The sun that melts my heart will have to rise in the west, and get up ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little

... "Sighs shall waft thy ship of sighs over the sea of Tears. Thou shalt pass by islands of laughter and lands of song lying low in the sea, and all of them drenched with tears flung over their rocks by the waves of the sea all driven by ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]

... it open, and a woman in evening dress, very decolletee, swept by him into the box, with a waft of ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers

... in the air, Who float 'twixt heaven and earth dominion wielding, Stoop hither from your golden atmosphere, Lead me to scenes, new life and fuller yielding! A magic mantle did I but possess, Abroad to waft me as on viewless wings, I'd prize it far beyond the costliest dress, Nor would I change it for the robe ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

... Roland. 'And now my little Renee has no more shore-qualms; she is smoothly chaperoned, and madame will present us tea on board. All the etcaeteras of life are there, and a mariner's eye in me spies a breeze at sunset to waft us out of Malamocco.' ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... up his hand to bless With readiness; yet who needs more such blessing? Is it the free-born bird that makes its nest Wherever its strong wings would waft it, or The flowery plant bound ...
— Life Immovable - First Part • Kostes Palamas

... had even passed on to the hall, where her friend and the general were waiting to welcome her, without feeling one awful foreboding of future misery to herself, or one moment's suspicion of any past scenes of horror being acted within the solemn edifice. The breeze had not seemed to waft the sighs of the murdered to her; it had wafted nothing worse than a thick mizzling rain; and having given a good shake to her habit, she was ready to be shown into the common drawing-room, and capable ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... Tumultuous, naked, and unsightly throng, With mutilated limbs and squalid faces, In litters and on crutches from afar Comfort yourselves, and with expanded nostrils Drink in the nectar of the feast divine That favourable zephyrs waft to you; But do not dare besiege these noble precincts, Importunately offering her that reigns Within your loathsome spectacle of woe! And now, sir, 't is your office to prepare The tiny cup that then shall minister, Slow sipped, ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... felt cold, even though my surprised blushes did their best to warm it. Her dish, when opened, contained nothing but flowers, waxy white, but emitting a delicately sweet perfume. She held them toward my face, and presently breathed gently across them, as if to waft their perfume to me. Then scattering them about my cushion, she pressed her left cheek to mine, arose and tripped down the steps again. There was a modest self-possession about her which enchanted me, and I hoped she would soon ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass

... class-fellows were talking, laughing, and wrangling, or perhaps trying to work in spite of the difficulties of after-dinner disinclination. A fitful little breeze, as if itself subject to the influence of the heat, would wake up for a few moments, wave a few heads of horse-daisies, waft a few strains of odour from the blossoms of the white clover, and then die away fatigued with the effort. Turkey took out his Jews' harp, and discoursed soothing if not ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald

... I am overpowered with melancholy forebodings. Scarcely are you out of my sight, before I dread, that I shall never see you more, or that some fatality should deprive me of your love. When shall the sails of love waft us from this dangerous shore? Oh! when shall I dare to call you mine? Heavens! how many things may intervene...! Let nothing detain you from Richmond this evening; but come not at all—come no more, unless to reassure my trembling heart, and to convince me that love and Olivia have ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth

... point of etiquette. So the bathycolpian Here—Juno, in Latin —sent down Iris instead. But I was mightily pleased to see that one of the gentlemen that do the heavy articles for the celebrated "Oceanic Miscellany" misquoted Campbell's line without any excuse. "Waft us HOME the MESSAGE" of course it ought to be. Will he be duly grateful ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... 'Old Cato is as great a rogue as you.' Blest paper-credit! last and best supply! That lends corruption lighter wings to fly! 40 Gold imp'd by thee, can compass hardest things, Can pocket states, can fetch or carry kings; A single leaf shall waft an army o'er, Or ship off senates[24] to a distant shore; A leaf, like Sibyl's, scatter to and fro Our fates and fortunes, as the winds shall blow: Pregnant with thousands flits the scrap unseen, And silent sells a king, ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope

... content, then, with the poor cottage, and the black bread, and the labor from morn till eve. Didst thou not of thyself wish for a palace and a lord like me? And did not the Hyldemoer waft me the wish, so that I came to meet and welcome thee under ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various

... southern-bound birds, their pale and second-hand reports, had yet power to awaken this wild new sensation and thrill him through and through with it; what would one moment of the real thing work in him—one passionate touch of the real southern sun, one waft of the authentic odour? With closed eyes he dared to dream a moment in full abandonment, and when he looked again the river seemed steely and chill, the green fields grey and lightless. Then his loyal heart seemed to cry out on his weaker ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame

... of the moors, and as we climb through the village we behold above and beyond it vast undulating sweeps of amethyst-tinted hills rising circle beyond circle,—all now one great expanse of purple bloom stirred by zephyrs which waft to us ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey

... to write to you; my thoughts run away with me, my pen flies like a bird over the paper. You need not remind me of the fact that my handwriting is execrable. I know it, therefore don't waft it across America. Spare me this mortification. Tear the letters up after reading them, or before, if you like. When I see the stacks of never-looked-through letters being dragged from one place to the other, tied up in their old faded ribbons, I feel ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone

... thing to sting it into torture. That living thing was his burning, sensitive heart, quivering, bleeding, convulsed, longing for the bliss of annihilation. And thus, in an agony far greater than that which the martyr endures in the chariot of flame which is to waft him to heaven, as the sufferings of the immortal spirit can exceed those of the perishable body, the insane man pursued his way. How unending seemed that road, and yet, how he longed that it might extend on for ever! Within the time of each revolution of the wheels, an age of torment was compressed; ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams

... prayer For other's weal avail'd on high, Mine will not all be lost in air, But waft thy name beyond ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett

... a problem in Euclid. To do so would be to treat the creatures by a law not germane to their nature. It is, indeed, a radical vice in Calvinistic reasoning that, because God is omnipotent, He can as easily therefore create virtue in a free being as He can waft the down of the thistle on the breeze. It is quite true that "whatsoever the Lord pleased that did He in heaven and in earth" (Ps. cxxxv. 6). But the question is—What is His pleasure in regard to the production of virtue? Is it a forced or free thing? Every good man will cheerfully ascribe ...
— The Doctrines of Predestination, Reprobation, and Election • Robert Wallace

... tolerate, stand, undergo, brook, submit to, suffer, bear with; harbor, cherish, entertain; support, sustain, uphold; carry, convey, transport, waft; render, produce, yield; bring forth, teem; relate, refer, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... human conduct likely, in every case, to be purer under the conviction that all its evil may in a moment be pardoned, and all its wrong-doing in a moment redeemed; and that the sigh of repentance, which purges the guilt of the past, will waft the soul into a felicity which forgets its pain,—than it may be under the sterner, and to many not unwise minds, more probable, apprehension, that 'what a man soweth that shall he also reap'—or others reap,—when ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... the farmer's clothes-line, which latter covers, in a far more essential manner, one-half of civilised humanity. Rightly viewed, I say, that double-barrelled ensign is the proudest gonfalon ever kissed by wanton zephyrs. Whoop! Vive Les——! Thou sun, shine on them joyously! Ye breezes, waft them wide! Our glorious Semper eadem, the ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... sea, each mute and living thing? Launched with Iberia's pilot from the steep, To worlds unknown, and isles beyond the deep? Or round the cope her living chariot driven, And wheeled in triumph through the signs of heaven? O star-eyed Science, hast thou wandered there, To waft us home the message ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various

... eyes: "And are ye here, my babes; and will ye rise If I but break your sleep?" His naked feet One faintly moved as low she leant; and warm His slumbrous breath stirred 'gainst her circling arm, And slow aneath his closed lids slipped a waft Of wind, that loosed a trickling tear. Its craft The mother-heart forgot thereat. "At last, Close to my breast, my babes," she cried, and fast Laughing, outstretched her eager hands and strong. Then lay with empty arms. The elfin throng Breasted the pulsing air with mocking ...
— Lilith - The Legend of the First Woman • Ada Langworthy Collier

... window of coloured glass, that was screened from a larger room, of which it was a part, by a curtain. The Lady Beckwith bade Paul be seated, and passed beyond the curtain for an instant. The room within seemed dark, but there came from it a waft of the fragrance of flowers; and Paul heard low voices talking together, and knew that Margaret spake; in a moment she appeared at the entrance, and greeted him with a very sweet and simple smile, but laid her finger on her lips; and so ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson

... a real relief, a positive relaxation from strain, therefore, when Tatsu threw open the door and unctuously announced Mademoiselle Mariposa. There was the slightest rustle of skirts, the faint waft of an enchanting fragrance, and Ydo came forward. As usual, her little mask concealed her face, revealing only her sparkling eyes, and her mantilla of Spanish lace covered her hair! but she had discarded her customary black gown. ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow

... thou no more shalt mourn Beneath the heathen's chain; Thy days of splendor shall return, And all be new again. The fount of life shall then be quaffed In peace by all who come; And every wind that blows, shall waft Some long-lost wand'rer home. ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams

... Ah, slave! the moment the breath is out of the body, lo, he has already deserted thee! and of all in which thou didst rejoice, all that gave thee such power over thy fellows, there is not left so much as a spike of thistle-down for the wind to waft from thy sight. For all thou hast had, there is nothing to show. Where is the friendship in which thou mightst have invested thy money, in place of burying it in the maw of mammon? Troops of the dead might now be coming to greet thee with love and service, hadst thou ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald

... evening I went on board the shallop of Richard Faulder, of Allanbay; and, committing ourselves to the waters, we allowed a gentle wind from the east to waft us at its pleasure toward the Scottish coast. We passed the sharp promontory of Siddick; and skirting the land within a stone-cast, glided along the shore till we came within sight of the ruined Abbey of Sweetheart. The green mountain ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various

... far up within the Heaven— "From grief and groan, to a golden throne, beside the King of Heaven." Let no bell toll then!—lest her soul, amid its hallowed mirth, Should catch the note as it doth float up from the damned Earth! And I!—to-night my heart is light! No dirge will I upraise, But waft the angel on her flight with a ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various

... is the poet's darling, perhaps because its frail breath seems to waft from out the delicate blue petals the rare imaginings native ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... bellowing east, In this dire season, oft the whirlwind's wing Sweeps up the burden of whole wintry plains At one wide waft, and o'er the hapless flocks, Hid in the hollow of two neighbouring hills, The billowy tempest whelms; till, upward urged, The valley to a shining mountain swells, Tipp'd with a ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson

... the bells on distant cattle Waft across the range; Through the golden-tufted wattle, Music low and strange; Like the marriage peal of fairies Comes the tinkling sound, Or like chimes of sweet St. Mary's On far English ground. How my courser champs the snaffle, And with nostril spread, Snorts and ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon

... gales shall fan the glade; Trees, where you sit, shall crowd into a shade; Your praise the birds shall chant in every grove, And winds shall waft it to the powers above. But would you sing, and rival Orpheus' strain, The wondering forests soon should dance again; The moving mountains hear the powerful call, And headlong streams hang, ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... A sort of fancy sketches, Limned on the mind's retina, with a grace More subtle than the wakeful artist catches, And tinted with a more ethereal trace. Our dreams annihilate both time and space, And waft us, with magnetic swiftness, back O'er an oblivious decade to the place Where youth's fond visions clustered o'er our track; Of youth's fond hopes decayed, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various

... the monstrous world; Or whether thou, to our moist vows denied, Sleep'st by the fable of Bellerus old, Where the great Vision of the guarded mount Looks toward Namancos and Bayona's hold, —Look homeward, Angel, now, and melt with ruth: —And, O ye dolphins, waft ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... live o'er the past, the happiest, How oft will fancy's wild imaginings Bear us in sleep to times and worlds unseen! But ah! not e'en unfettered fancy's wings Can lead us back to aught that we have been, Or waft us to that smiling, sunny shore, Which e'en in slumber we ...
— Poems • Frances Anne Butler

... "And waft about the powdery snow, As night's dim footsteps pass; But waiting, in its grave ...
— Adela Cathcart - Volume II • George MacDonald

... purple pinions move, And arms her Zephyrs with the shafts of Love, Pleased GNOMES, ascending from their earthy beds, Play round her graceful footsteps, as she treads; 75 Gay SYLPHS attendant beat the fragrant air On winnowing wings, and waft her golden hair; Blue NYMPHS emerging leave their sparkling streams, And FIERY FORMS alight from orient beams; Musk'd in the rose's lap fresh dews they shed, 80 Or breathe ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin

... some frightful calamity had overtaken the State. Confusion and alarm pervaded the court. The Gunpowder Plot itself hardly shook up the gray heads of King James's cabinet more than did the flight of this pair of parted doves. The wind seemed to waft peril. The minutes seemed fraught with threats. Couriers were despatched in all haste to the neighboring seaports, and hurry ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... and brood over broken fortunes and the calamities of life? Why tarry in the doldrums of pessimism, with never a breeze to catch your limp and drooping sails and waft you on a joyous wave? Pessimism is the nightmare of the world. It is the prophet of famine, pestilence, and human woe. It is the apostle of the Devil, and its mission is to impede the progress of civilization. It denounces every ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor

... bank By the willowy river-side, Where Narcissus gently sank, Where unmarried Echo died, Unto thy serene repose Waft the stricken Anteros. ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)

... to the immortality of either, who shall say? And is even that the question? No: the question is—did both men wish to waft the white sail of good and beauty on its way? Assuredly. . . . And so she cries at the last: "Your nature too is kingly"; and this is for her the sole source of ardour—she "trusts truth's inherent kingliness"; and the poets are of all men most ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne

... Grigsby, and raised his rifle. With single movement the two boatmen swung the canoe broadside and held it. The Fremonter sent eagle glance adown his leveled barrel—the rifle cracked and puffed a little waft of smoke. "Spat!" sounded the bullet. The huge snake began to writhe and twist, fairly shaking the tree; then fold by fold it issued, in a horrid mazy line of yellow and black (would it never end?), until with a plash the last of it fell ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin

... "nasal twang" as one of the peculiarities of the conventicle, when it is in full force in the most approved seats of church orthodoxy. I listened to all in as uncritical and sympathetic a spirit as possible, giving myself up to be lifted by the music as high as it could waft me. To one thus listening, it is impossible to criticize with severity; for, unless positively offensive, any music becomes beautiful by the power of sympathy and association. After service we listened to a short sermon from the Rev. Mr. Villiers, ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... is flooded with splendor, And perfumes waft through the air, And gentle people are kneeling To ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... did—and it took her all of an hour—nothing that the morning sun shone on was quite as lovely, and no waft of air so refreshing or so welcome as our beloved heroine when she burst in ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith

... amongst the family archives of some of the great country seats of Powysland, there are to be discovered by the diligent searcher masses of old papers, the very existence of which may, perhaps, have been half-forgotten by their present owners, but which waft us back more than half-a-century, and shed varied light on some of the obscurer passages in ...
— The Story of the Cambrian - A Biography of a Railway • C. P. Gasquoine

... the grave where his father and mother lay buried and seated himself near it. Just then, a gentle breeze caused the stately trees surrounding the graveyard to waft their leafy tops to and fro. Nature was ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel

... faint perfume of hyacinths from the borders along which they had passed and the trimly-cut flower-beds which fringed the deep green lawn. Almost he could hear the chiming of the old stable clock, the clear note of a thrush singing. A puff of wind brought them a waft of fainter odour from the wild violets which carpeted the woods. Then the darkness crept around them, a star came out. Hand in hand they turned towards the house and into the library, where a wood fire was burning on the grate. His ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... dreaming that soon You would see the grey team passing, their fetlocks wet with the brook, Or the shining mountainous straw-load: there the summer moon would look Through the leaves on the lampless room, wherein we sat we twain, All London vanished away; and the morn of the summer rain Would waft us the scent of the hay; or the first faint yellow leaves Would flutter adown before us and tell of the acres ...
— The Pilgrims of Hope • William Morris

... being ceased, we were constrained for want of wind to stay and waft vp and downe, and then went backe againe to Tition in Barbary, which is sixe leagues off from Gibraltar, and when we came thither we found the people wonderous fauourable to vs, who being but Moores ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt

... the report north and south to all the cities and towns, to Central and South America, to China and Japan, to Europe and more distant lands; and the wings of the wind would serve as couriers to waft the story across the Sierras and the Rocky Mountains and the plains, till the whole world would be startled and gladdened with the cry, Gold is found, gold in California! One of the women of Sutler's household told the secret, which was too ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey

... longing which is satisfied here, where one feels alive in a brilliantly coloured picture, with none of the hardness of reality. When I was a child, illustrations of woodland and sea, in Paul and Virginia, or Robinson Crusoe, would waft me away from the everyday world; and the sunshine here brings back to my mind the feeling with which I used to ...
— Glimpses of Bengal • Sir Rabindranath Tagore

... flower! who art wont to bloom On January's front severe, And o'er the wintry desert drear To waft thy waste perfume! Come, thou shalt form my nosegay now, And I will bind thee round my brow; And, as I twine the mournful wreath, I'll weave a melancholy song, And sweet the strain shall be, and long— The melody ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor

... Waft me this verse across the winter sea, Through light and dark, through mist and blinding sleet, O winter winds, and lay it at his feet; Though the poor gift betray my poverty, At his feet lay it; it may chance that he Will find no gift, where ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... said the voice, "who waft about them as they move the musk of the rose-gardens of Araby. When you come to reign over us in town, Madam, there will be no perfume in the mode but that of rose-leaves, and in all drawing-rooms we shall breathe but ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... voice follows swiftly upon excessive inflammation. There you have it in a nutshell. The mucous membrane of the larynx and the bronchial tubes, to enlarge upon its duty for a moment, is endowed with very fine, hair-like processes called cilia, whose action is to waft secretions from the interior of the lungs outward. Hence the danger of promiscuous spraying with all sorts of everyday nostrums, or of anything which may interfere with the activity of these minute bodies or the media in ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller

... what was more to the point, as the breeze happened to waft an odor to their noses all of the scouts detected the strong and unmistakable smell of fish, which must always be associated with ...
— The, Boy Scouts on Sturgeon Island - or Marooned Among the Game-fish Poachers • Herbert Carter

... the metre of the Rig-veda].— Holy flames, that gleam around Every altar's hallowed ground; Holy flames, whose frequent food Is the consecrated wood, And for whose encircling bed, Sacred Kusa-grass is spread; Holy flames, that waft to heaven Sweet oblations daily given, Mortal guilt to purge away;— Hear, oh hear me, when I pray— Purify my child this day! Now then, my daughter, set out on thy journey. [Looking on one side.] Where are thy ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... faith, for if they cease to honor the Gods how will they submit to kings? Seti ventured much, his son risks still more, and therefore both have required much succor from the Immortals. Rameses is pious, he sacrifices frequently, and loves prayer: we are necessary to him, to waft incense, to slaughter hecatombs, to offer prayers, and to interpret dreams—but we are no longer his advisers. My father, now in Osiris, a worthier high-priest than I, was charged by the Prophets to entreat ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... dead are asking us when we mean to erect that monument. From trench and shell hole where death found them, their voices call—young, musical voices, the voices of boys still in their teens, the voices of martyrs on life's threshold. Scarce a wind can blow that will not waft to you these voices. And they ask a better Britain as their monument. They ask it of you and me. Shall we not go from this place resolved to ...
— The Seventeenth Highland Light Infantry (Glasgow Chamber of Commerce Battalion) - Record of War Service, 1914-1918 • Various

... modern atheistic doctrines of similar character, we have no qualification or condition to suggest which might change its force or significance. When we remember that the genius of such a man as Laplace shared the farthest flight of star-eyed science only to "waft us back the tidings of despair," we are thankful that so profound a student of Nature as Mr. Agassiz has tracked the warm foot-prints of Divinity throughout all the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... dropped over the village, than I secreted myself where no one could see me, and changed my suit ready for the passage. Soon I heard the welcome sound of a Steamboat coming up the river Ohio, which was soon to waft me beyond the limits of the human slave markets of Kentucky. When the boat had landed at Madison, notwithstanding my strong desire to get off, my heart trembled within me in view of the great danger to which I was exposed in taking passage on board of a Southern Steamboat; hence before ...
— Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself • Henry Bibb

... old when the clamor o' Babel's end (All seas were chartless then!) Drove forth the brood, and Solitude Was the newest quest of men. I lay like a gem in a silken sea Unseen, uncoveted, unguessed Till scented winds that waft afar Bore word o' the warm delights there are Where ground-swells sing by Zanzibar Long rhapsodies ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy

... acorns have a shade of the same hue now before they become brown. As it withers, the many-pointed leaf of the white bryony and the bine as it shrivels, in like manner, do their part. The white thistle-down, which stays on the bursting thistles because there is no wind to waft it away, reflects it; the white is pushed aside by the colour that the stained ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies

... to her order. It was but a word, — or two words; one of business, to say what he had done for her; and one of kindness, to say what he hoped she was doing for herself. Both words were brief, and cool; but with them, with the very handwriting of them, came a waft of that atmosphere of influence — that silent breath of truth which every character breathes — which in this instance was sweetened with airs from heaven. The image of the writer rose before her brightly, ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner

... the window and stood there tearing the tax bill to bits and watching the breeze waft them away, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... any guise—sorriest horseman of all, youngest, slenderest, and stranger to all the ways that youth loves—and at once she is visible; nay, more, accessible; and he, welcome. So accessible she, so welcome he, that more than once she has to waft aside her mother's criticisms by pleading Bonaventure's foster-brotherhood and her one ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... Jane wore. Instead of the wholesome freshness of the free, open air, Jane was wearing a heady, spicy scent engineered to cut its way through the blocking barrier of stale cigar smoke, whisky-laden secondhand air, and a waft of cooking aroma from the kitchen ...
— The Big Fix • George Oliver Smith

... Thy noblest gift, the gift divine of song, If, so content with ear-deep melodies [2] To please all profitless, I did not pour Severer strains; of Truth—eternal Truth, Unchanging Justice, universal Love. Such strains awake the soul to loftiest thoughts, Such strains the Blessed Spirits of the Good Waft, grateful incense, to ...
— Poems • Robert Southey

... "Bobby" was not at his post. Then with a flash came the recollection of Bobby's mistress—the pale, unfortunate young seamstress she had so unconscionably neglected. She wondered if she were alive or dead. A waft of sickly odors surged from below; Esther felt a deadly faintness coming over her; she had walked far, and nothing had yet passed her lips since yesterday's dinner, and at this moment, too, an overwhelming terrifying feeling of loneliness pressed like an icy hand upon her heart. ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... five thousand Miles, You've chang'd dear London for your Native Seat, And think Barbadoes is a safe Retreat; You highly err: Nor is the Wat'ry Fence Sufficient Guard against Impertinence. The Muse, which smiles on jingling Bards, like Me, Has always Winds to waft her o'er the Sea. Blow on, ye Winds, and o'er th' Atlantick Main, Bear to my Gen'rous Friend this ...
— Discourse on Criticism and of Poetry (1707) - From Poems On Several Occasions (1707) • Samuel Cobb

... approve of my laying up treasure. I breathe delight with every waft of fragrance, and though you may not believe it, the natural has a charm for me. I have been slowly studying it for a year. Is it a symptom of second childhood,—this love of olden pleasures, this longing to retrace?" and she raises her slow-moving ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... the air," spake Ootah, "waft your caresses to Annadoah's cheeks. Tell her Ootah waits to kill the walrus, that Ootah loves her and would make Annadoah his wife—neuilacto Annadoah; tell Annadoah Ootah presses his nose to hers and ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre

... to others' villany," Claude interrupted; "still, hear me," he continued, "and forgive me if I bring you tidings that shall hang as heavy on your soul as lead; yet have given me the leaden bullet's swiftness, or that of the blast, to waft them hither, blasting, to yourself.—Sir, you have been robbed, bereaved; the star of Stillyside is set,—or, worse, plucked from its firmament; my life, my lady, oh, my new-made love, your ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege

... to accept the offer, you know," he assured her. "I only made it to be offensive. And as I've apparently been successful beyond my fondest hopes, I will now waft myself away." ...
— Little Miss Grouch - A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's - Maiden Transatlantic Voyage • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... well, ungrateful lover! Welcome Gallia's hostile shore: Now the breezes waft me over; Now we part—to ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson

... the winds to waft us so many desirable things, we actively engaged in hiring camels, procuring servants, and otherwise making ready for a start. The details of all these preparations, which cost me prodigious anxiety, as I was obliged to study at the same ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson

... dog under each arm; a large hat, gay with flowers, upon her head. She wore patent shoes with high heels, and white silk stockings. She had, indeed, the air of being dressed for luncheon at a fashionable restaurant. As she stooped to set the dogs down, a strong waft of perfume was ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... the prime, the pterodactyl, did even better. Stretching on each little finger a lateen sail that would have served to waft a skiff across the Thames, it kept the rest of its hands for other uses. But what bearing has all this on the case of birds? Here is a whole sub-kingdom, as they call it, of the animal world which has unreservedly and ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)

... time, since last I saw the king, The affairs of court have wholly changed their face: Unhappy Aureng-Zebe is in disgrace; And your Morat, proclaimed the successor, Is called, to awe the city with his power. Those trumpets his triumphant entry tell, And now the shouts waft near ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden



Words linked to "Waft" :   float, pennoncel, be adrift, streamer, pennant, flag, pennon, pennoncelle, drift, penoncel, blow



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