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Wane   Listen
verb
Wane  v. i.  (past & past part. waned; pres. part. waning)  
1.
To be diminished; to decrease; contrasted with wax, and especially applied to the illuminated part of the moon. "Like the moon, aye wax ye and wane. Waning moons their settled periods keep."
2.
To decline; to fail; to sink. "You saw but sorrow in its waning form." "Land and trade ever will wax and wane together."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Wane" Quotes from Famous Books



... even in America the respect for Titles is on the wane. We venture to extract the following item from the catalogue of an American dealer in autographs:—"BRYCE, JAMES, Viscount. Historian. Original MS. 33 pp. 4to of his article 'Equality.' In this he says:—'The evils of hereditary titles exceed their advantage. In Great Britain they produce snobbishness ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 3, 1914 • Various

... may have only one wife, but he may keep concubines. If the wife's relatives suspect that a mistress is causing the husband's affections to wane, they may hold the Nagkakalonan or "trial of affection" (cf. p. 282), and if their charges are sustained, the husband must pay them a considerable amount, and, in addition, stand all the expenses of the gathering. If ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole

... this defiant and unvanquishable spirit kept Pete Noel going. But as the brief northern day began to wane, and a shadow to darken behind the thick, white gloom of the storm, his forces, his tough, corded muscles and his tempered nerves, again began to falter. He caught himself stumbling, and seeking excuse for delay in getting up. In spite of every effort of his will, he saw ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts

... himself, and more than once groaned bitterly. At first he only shut his teeth and held his temples in his hands; but after a while he began to cry to himself, over and over again, "O Absalom, my son, my son! O my son Absalom!" and then only "My son, my son!" And when the day began to wane above the woods of Arden, he arose, and came up from the river, walking swiftly; and, looking neither to the right nor to the left, came up to the Great House garden, and went in at ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett

... had been for about sixteen years a resident of the region when it was transferred by purchase to the United States. The family had been from an early day, the first in point of civilization in the country. And as his position seemed to wane, and clouds to hover over his estates, he seemed restless, and desirous to transfer his influence to another theatre of action. From my earliest conversations with him, he had fixed his mind on Texas, and spoke ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... that his sympathies, although greatly roused in her favour began to wane. She met the question with a cold stare followed by a few ambiguous words out of which he could make nothing. Had she said wretch? She did not remember. They must not be influenced by anything she might have uttered in her first grief. ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green

... the most distant chance of escape from danger. Jack, too, I could see from the look of his face, put little faith in the plan; and I observed an expression on the countenance of our negro guide which seemed to indicate that his respect for Peterkin's wisdom was on the wane. ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne

... truths, in learned verse they told, And nature's deepest secrets did unfold. How at th' eternal mind's omnisic call, Yon starry arch, and this terrestrial ball, The briny wave, the blazing source of light, And the wane empress of the silent night, Each in it's order rose and took its place, And filled with recent forms the vacant space; How rolling planets trace their destin'd way, Nor in the wastes of pathless AEther stray; How the pale moon, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber

... a little fool you are!" He jumped up angrily from his chair, leaving her there upon the hearthrug. A woman makes a false move when she speaks of "another woman" to the man whose affection for her is on the wane. In the present instance the accusation was utterly without foundation. Many as were his self-reproaches on her account, that one had never been amongst them. If he did not love her, neither had he the slightest fancy for any ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron

... the wane, and they haven't shown up yet. Now, what worries me is just this. Suppose they should push out westward from the reservation, cross the Platte somewhere about Bull Bend or even nearer Laramie, and come down the Chug from the north. Who is ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King

... had been Peter Ruff's first love had fallen upon evil days. Her prettiness was on the wane—powder and rouge, late hours, and excesses of many kinds, had played havoc with it, even in these few months. Her clothes were showy but cheap. Her boots themselves, unclean and down at heel, told the story. She stood upon the threshold of Peter Ruff's office, and looked half ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... a succession of wedding anniversaries has passed its high tide and is on the wane. Nevertheless, the custom is not out, by any means. The tenth, twenty-fifth and fiftieth anniversaries, known as the tin, silver, and golden, are ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... wives! Having bathed also in that foremost of tirthas on the Sarasvati, the god having the hare for his mark shall, ye gods, grow once more! These words of mine are true! For half the month Soma shall wane every day, and for half the month (following) he will wax every day! These words of mine are true! Proceeding to the western Ocean at the spot where the Sarasvati mingles with the Ocean, that vast receptacle ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... 1830, was destined to resuscitate the feeling of the American people for the Polish cause. For the Poles sojourning in this country had reasons to believe that even that passive sentiment was on the wane, that interests, not less illusory than selfish, were working to destroy even the impressions which sacred national remembrances, by twining together the memories of Washington and Kosciuszko, had created in the American heart. Strange to ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various

... were now not far off. Stas, however, slackened his pace for his strength began to wane. Nell, though light, seemed heavier and heavier. The Sudanese, who were anxious to go to sleep, shouted at him to hurry and afterwards drove him on, striking him on the head with their fists. Gebhr even pricked him painfully in the shoulder with a knife. The boy endured ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... one. It is from this time that the idea of Italian independence, though foreign to the great mass of the nation, may be said to have taken birth as one of those political hopes which wane and recede, but do not again leave the world. A class of men who had turned with dislike from the earlier agitation of French Republicans in Italy rightly judged the continued victories of Bonaparte over the Austrians ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... work of art. No doubt the captain and his lieutenant were well enough pleased, for they stride forth in the forefront of the picture, but the rank and file were bitterly hostile. From the painting of The Night Watch his popularity began to wane. ...
— Rembrandt • Mortimer Menpes

... will perceive Caius's object, and be slow to admit that he spoiled the show. But though such acts pleased the people, all of them had not forgiven him the proposition about the franchise; and his popularity was on the wane. [Sidenote: Drusus outbids Caius.] The Senate had suborned one of his colleagues, M. Livius Drusus, to outbid him. Either Drusus thought he was guiding the Senate into a larger policy when he was himself merely the Senate's puppet, and this his son's career makes probable, or he was ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley

... said to myself. "Life had better wane slowly away than to go out in lurid gleams like the flashes of a ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur

... restored her father to good humour. He had no more idea of marrying a second time than of flying. He was tenderly attached in his way to his wife's memory, and quite sufficiently troubled by the number of dwellers in his house already; but he rather liked, as a good-looking man in his wane generally does, to think that he could marry if he pleased, and to hold the possibility over the heads of his household, as a chastisement of all their sins against him which he could use at any time. All the Mays grew ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... are things eternal?—Powers depart, Possessions vanish, and opinions change, And passions hold a fluctuating seat; But, by the storms of circumstance unshaken, And subject neither to eclipse nor wane, Duty exists; immutably survive For our support, the measures and the forms Which an abstract intelligence supplies; Whose kingdom is where time and ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton

... of more zeal in the cause, and her raw uncivilised hordes continued to issue forth under the banners of the cross in numbers apparently undiminished, when the enthusiasm had long been on the wane in other countries. They were sunk at that time in a deeper slough of barbarism than the livelier nations around them, and took, in consequence, a longer period to free themselves from their prejudices. In fact the second Crusade drew its ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... Moon, your horns point toward the east: Shine, be increased; O Lady Moon, your horns point toward the west: Wane, be ...
— The Posy Ring - A Book of Verse for Children • Various

... a royal wane; Down the long sand they led me on, A bride new-decked, a bride of bane, In Aulis to the Nereid's son. And now estranged for evermore Beyond the far estranging foam I watch a flat and herbless shore, Unloved, unchilded, without ...
— The Iphigenia in Tauris • Euripides

... can not measure in any accurate way the duration of the events which have taken place since the last Glacial period began to wane, a study of the facts seems to show that less than a hundred thousand years can not well be assumed for this interval. Some of the students who have approached the subject are disposed to allow a period of at least ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler

... The Wane of Uxenden (ARNOLD) seems to be one of those novels which may be classed as worthy in intention without being exactly happy in execution. Miss LEGGE has a desire to warn us all against the perils of monkeying ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 16, 1917. • Various

... appeares by his smal light of discretion, that he is in the wane: but yet in courtesie, in all reason, we must stay ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... the Royal Company was by this time definitely on the wane Sir Paul Painter succeeded in presenting his petition regarding affairs in Barbadoes to the House of Commons, in September, 1667. Although the Royal Company was ordered to produce its charter no further action was taken. The planters ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various

... has no finder. Having taking out the eye-piece—a low-power one, suppose—direct the tube nearly towards Sirius. On looking through it, a glare of light will be seen within the tube. Now, if the tube be slightly moved about, the light will be seen to wax and wane, according as the tube is more or less accurately directed. Following these indications, it will be found easy to direct the tube, so that the object-glass shall appear full of light. When this is done, insert the eye-piece, and the star will ...
— Half-hours with the Telescope - Being a Popular Guide to the Use of the Telescope as a - Means of Amusement and Instruction. • Richard A. Proctor

... inaugurate Satan as the God of the universe. If, like the sun, it is not wholly spotless, still, like the sun, without it there is no light. If murky clouds obscure its brightness, still it shines in its strength. If, at a seems to wane to its final setting, it is only to reveal itself in the splendour of a ...
— No Compromise with Slavery - An Address Delivered to the Broadway Tabernacle, New York • William Lloyd Garrison

... anything else—the spirit in which he felt her to be there as soon as she was there, the shade of obscurity that cleared up for him as soon as he was seated with her in the small salon de lecture that had, for the most part, in all the weeks, witnessed the wane of his early vivacity of discussion with Waymarsh. It was an immense thing, quite a tremendous thing, for her to have come: this truth opened out to him in spite of his having already arrived for himself at a fairly vivid view of it. He had done exactly what he had given Waymarsh his word ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James

... for their peace to learn that there is a tide in the affairs of men, in a sense more subtle—if it is not too audacious to add a meaning to Shakespeare—than the phrase was meant to contain. Their joy is flying away from them on its way home; their life will wax and wane; and if they would be wise, they must wake and rest in its phases, knowing that they are ruled by the law that commands all things—a sun's revolutions and ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell

... and wane:— But how slowly it waneth! How her heart now paineth For sight of the ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper

... Volume after volume of "Tristram Shandy" wooed and won public applause. Sterne travelled abroad and found the same adulation in other capitals of Europe that he had enjoyed in London. When the popularity of "Shandy" {302} appeared to be on the wane, and the fame of its author to be dwindling, he whipped it up again with the "Sentimental Journey." We may finish his story by anticipation. He died one of the most tragic deaths recorded in the necrology of genius. He died in London on March 18, 1768, and he ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... dropping that point, "I suppose as the busy season began to wane that mode of livelihood, of ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable

... me, Mother, your caress hurts me, See through my face, How I glow and wane. Give the last kiss. Let me go. Send a prayer after me. That I broke your ...
— The Verse of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein

... was inclined to think that Madame Vatrotski was dead. I did not believe she had disappeared as an advertisement: there was no earthly reason why she should, since her popularity had shown no signs of being on the wane, and to attribute the mystery to a Nihilist plot was not a solution ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner

... Sweetwater above its junction with the Platte, to travel by night if need be and hide by day if he could, to let no man or woman know the purpose of his going or the destination of his journey, but to land that package safe at Warrior Gap before the moon should wane. ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King

... Talkative at first lifts up his plumes! How bravely doth he speak! How he presumes To drive down all before him! But so soon As Faithful talks of heart-work, like the moon That's past the full, into the wane he goes. And so will all, but he that ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress - From this world to that which is to come. • John Bunyan

... that shall be! All of our labor to sow seeds of gain Grows in the ages when our names shall wane, Gathered with others', 't is stored in the true Will to renew. This then shall carry our labor within, Safely within The land that ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson

... Gressmann [116] to find some historical background to the episode is a failure. The goddess Ishtar symbolizes the earth which woos the sun in the spring, but whose love is fatal, for after a few months the sun's power begins to wane. Gilgamesh, who in incantation hymns is invoked in terms which show that he was conceived as a sun-god, [117] recalls to the goddess how she changed her lovers into animals, like Circe of Greek mythology, and brought them to grief. Enraged ...
— An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilgamesh Epic • Anonymous

... and was away for nearly two years. In Rogers's "Table Talk," it is recorded—"Before his going abroad, Garrick's attraction had much decreased; Sir W.W. Pepys said that the pit was often almost empty. But, on his return to England, people were mad about seeing him." His popularity did not wane a ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell

... now lost, but re-written by the contributor, from scraps of recitation by an old woman in Berwickshire, localises the story of the fire-drake ('the laidly worm') near Bamborough in Northumberland; and Kinloch said that the term 'Childe o' Wane' was still applied by disconsolate damsels of Bamborough to any youth who champions them. However, Mr. R. W. Clark of Bamborough, who has kindly made inquiries for me, could find ...
— Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series • Frank Sidgwick

... stores of experiences as vast as the sea itself; for his business in life was to wander up and down the world, collecting orchids and wild beasts and ethnological specimens for German and American dealers. I watched the glowing end of his cigar wax and wane in the gloom, as the sentences rose and fell, till I was nearly asleep. The orangoutang, troubled by some dream of the forests of his freedom, began to yell like a soul in purgatory, and to wrench madly at the bars of ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... "sharp going while it lasts, and a little knack wanted to stick them scientifically. Some say it's more exciting than fox-hunting, but that's childish; I never heard a man assert it whose liver was not on the wane. It's more dangerous, certainly. A header into the Smite or the Whissendine is nothing to a fall backward into a nullah, with a beaten horse on ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence

... beauty overbroods These fair and faint similitudes; Yet not unblest is he who sees Shadows of God's realities, And knows beyond this masquerade Of shape and color, light and shade, And dawn and set, and wax and wane, Eternal verities remain. ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... the excessive heat of summer was on the wane, he went down to Mr. Carr's chambers, and found that gentleman out. Not out for long, the clerk thought; and sat down and waited. The room he was in looked out on the cool garden, the quiet river; in the one there was not a soul except Mr. Broom himself, ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood

... then we also perceive that with the development of variety and complexity, the element of unity becomes more active and manifest. This view of the progressive unitization of the individual man in a psychological aspect, is very suggestive when taken in connection with the wane of despotism and the growth of liberty, as society and government advance, and it becomes ever less the province of law to ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... ravages of sectarianism, from her entanglements with Mammon, no one can deny. But that these evils are tending to increase is not evident. There is reason rather to hope that they are all on the wane, unless it be ...
— The Church and Modern Life • Washington Gladden

... small light of discretion, that he is in the wane: but yet, in courtesy, in all reason, we must stay ...
— A Midsummer Night's Dream • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... these: if haply we retain The reverence that ne'er will overrun Due boundaries of realms from Nature won, Nor let the poet's awe in rapture wane. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... never want for education. That the boy, therefore, might go to college, these parents rose up early to vex the soil and sat up late to wear their fingers thin, denying the eye beauty, denying the taste and imagination their food, denying the appetite its pleasures. And while they suffer and wane the boy in college grows wise and strong and waxing great, comes home to find the parents overwrought with service and ready to fall on death, having offered ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis

... together till Phobos passed right in front of Deimos so as to hide it entirely. This is termed an occultation; and both the satellites had become full when the occultation occurred; but when they were again clear of each other both were beginning to wane. ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks

... passed, spring lengthened to summer; summer was on the wane, and still the New World seemed no nearer. The ships were completed, and the empty hulls rode in the harbour of St Malo awaiting supplies and arms. But the money promised by the King was not forthcoming; and Cartier reluctantly prepared to spend another winter ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis

... ever come to me, ever again, The long, long dances, On through the dark till the dim stars wane? Shall I feel the dew on my throat and the stream Of wind in my hair? Shall our white feet gleam In the dim expanses? O feet of a fawn to the greenward fled, Alone in the grass and ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman

... profession?" he replied "My profession! I keep up the supply of Mulattos!" "Je fais des mulatres!" It was in the days of the greatest prosperity of our beautiful Antilles that the old boaster spoke. When I arrived, this was already on the wane, and it really was tiresome not to be allowed to talk about anything but sugar and emancipation ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville

... If that there ain't the wane on the top of our mast sticking up out of a hindful o' ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn

... playing upon it; they counted among their pupils the highest and noblest in the land. The cult of the musette continued throughout the 17th and 18th centuries until the 'seventies, when its popularity was on the wane and musettes figured largely in sales.[40] Lully introduced the musette into his operas, and in 1758 the list of instruments forming the orchestra at the Opera includes one musette.[41] Illustrations of bag-pipes are found in the miniatures of the following MSS. in the British ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... of motors did not wane, however, and after trying every known make of car, and investigating the advance reports of all cars designed for manufacture in the early future, she blithely invested her fortune in a sturdy blue Rollsmobile, and was immediately enraptured with the ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston

... time he thought she had gone to get them, and stayed until I was compelled to go and pray her to return. It was the ringing of the two o'clock lunch bell that suggested to him that the day was waning, and that perhaps he had better wane too. ...
— Humour of the North • Lawrence J. Burpee

... but their fountains will last, As the stream passes ever, and never is past: Exhausted so quickly, replenished so soon, They wax and they wane like the horns of ...
— The Poetry of Wales • John Jenkins

... that they could sever, That clouds could rise, or morning wane; They loved, and thought that love for ever Would bind them in its ...
— Poems • Sam G. Goodrich

... there is no need now to keep out of the sun. Everything is soberer, more measured, more fugitive, less emphatic. Energy is gone, youth is past, prodigality at an end, the summer over. The year is on the wane and tends toward winter; it is once more in harmony with my own age and position, and next Sunday it will keep my birthday. All these different ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... education and a great admirer of Mr. Clay. But the Whig party had ceased to exist before I had an opportunity of exercising the privilege of casting a ballot; the Know-Nothing party had taken its place, but was on the wane; and the Republican party was in a chaotic state and had not yet received a name. It had no existence in the Slave States except at points on the borders next to Free States. In St. Louis City and County, ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant

... voices of the rain! When the airy war doth wane, And the storm to the east hath flown, Cloaked close in the whirling wind, There's a voice still left behind In each heavy-hearted tree, Charged with tearful memory Of the vanished rain: From their leafy lashes wet Drip the dews of fresh ...
— Rose and Roof-Tree - Poems • George Parsons Lathrop

... is out of tune, Where all these old forgotten things are sleeping,— Give back to silence's eternal keeping The windless pond, the hanging colonnade, Lest in the wane of the long afternoon, The Dead ...
— The Five Books of Youth • Robert Hillyer

... this wane was the putting into operation, by President Wilson and the triumphant Democrats, of many of the Progressive suggestions which the Democratic Platform had also contained. The psychological effect of success in politics is always important and this accounted for the cooling ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer

... a hammer on a coffin falls A knock upon the door! The colours wane, The dreams vanish! And leave that foul white scar, Tattoo'd with dreadful marks, the old calendar Blotching the blistered walls! The winter whistles thro' a shivered pane, And scatters on the bare boards at my feet These poor soiled manuscripts, ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... during which the Philippine Islands made the greatest economic progress in their history. But this in itself was preparing the final catastrophe, for if there be any fact well established in human experience it is that with economic development the power of organized religion begins to wane—the rise of the merchant spells the decline of the priest. A sordid change, from masses and mysteries to sugar and shoes, this is often said to be, but it should be noted that the epochs of greatest economic activity have been those during which the generality ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... appertaining to state government; and, likewise, I know a woman is ever prone to take up a fancy, even as she would pluck a daisy from the roadside, and then throw it away when the savor is gone; therefore, though she hath taken a fancy to this outlaw, it will soon wane away and be forgotten. As for me, I have the greatest villain in all England in my grasp; shall I, then, open my hand and let him slip betwixt my fingers? Thus, Your Majesty, would I say to myself, were I the King of England." So the Bishop talked, ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle

... mode of debate. William of Champeaux was then the head of the cathedral school of Notre Dame and the leading teacher of logic in France. "Within a few months Abelard made his authority totter, and set his reputation on the wane. In six or seven years he drove him in shame and humiliation from his chair, after a contest which filled Christendom with its echoes." By overcoming William in debate he established his own reputation ...
— Readings in the History of Education - Mediaeval Universities • Arthur O. Norton

... eternal twilight they move, those frail diaphanous figures, whose tremulous white feet seem not to touch the dew-drenched grass they tread on. But those who walk in epos, drama, or romance, see through the labouring months the young moons wax and wane, and watch the night from evening unto morning star, and from sunrise unto sunsetting can note the shifting day with all its gold and shadow. For them, as for us, the flowers bloom and wither, and the Earth, that Green-tressed Goddess ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde

... misfortune. The day came, a day which we must pass without food or water. Our sufferings hitherto had not been great, but this morning they became very intense. Hope, which had till now never deserted us, began to grow faint, and alas! even trust in God's providence to wane. I tried to pray, but my thoughts were confused. I could not for two consecutive minutes fix them on the same subject, and I experienced practically the folly of attempting to wait for a death-bed repentance, ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston

... have had their lives redeemed from lingering death through the simple, easy ways of Nature never suffer their enthusiasm to wane. Not to volunteer aid when unintentional suicide is going on ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey

... ran directly toward the howling spectators, but his marvelous speed and alertness were on the wane; while on the other hand his foremost pursuer, who had taken part in hundreds of similar events, had every confidence in his own endurance. Each leap brought him nearer, fiercer and more determined. The last effort of the Jack was to lose himself ...
— Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... told, is to be recited in a whisper, in the presence of an image of wax. The image is burnt as the words are spoken, and as it is consumed the power of the witch is supposed to wane. The reference to the indispensable presence of the fire-god in the temple is rather interesting. Sacrifice always entailed the use of fire. To whatever deity the offering was made, Gibil-Nusku could not in any case be overlooked. The fire ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow

... when from blackest loss shall be born most radiant gain; When over the gory fields shall rise a star that never shall wane: Then, and then only, our Dead shall know that they have not fall'n ...
— Rhymes of a Red Cross Man • Robert W. Service

... lie all, my friend, who say that the nights wane short in summer, when Zeus brings the long days. Already have I seen ten thousand dreams, and the dawn is not yet. Am I wrong, what ails them, ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang

... food, and his raiment, and his well-being, and never of her own—only, if she is wise she will hide all these things in her heart, for the average man cannot stand this great light of her sweetness, and when her love becomes selfless, his love will wane." ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn

... going about of an oracle, an oracle which says that the Republic reached its acme under Trajan, that the Empire kept up its prosperity under Hadrian and my Grandfather and Father, but that the glory of Rome is fated to fade and wane and that its decline will date from my ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White

... the year by the decision of the War office not to order any more monoplanes; and from this time forward until the War period the British Army was provided exclusively with biplanes. Even prior to this the popularity of the monoplane had begun to wane. At the Olympia Aero Show in March, 1913, biplanes for the first time outnumbered the 'single-deckers'(as the Germans call monoplanes); which had the effect of reducing the wing-loading. In the case of the biplanes ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian

... appearance generally excited pity, if not sorrow, among his neighbors. His character became simpler every day, and his intellect evidently more exhausted. The inoffensive humor, for which he had been noted, was also completely on the wane; his eye waxed dim, his step feeble, but the benevolence of his heart never failed him. Many acts of his private generosity are well known, and still ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton

... noon, Pauses above the death-still wood the moon; The night-sprite sighing, through the dim air stirs; The clouds descend in rain; Mourning, the wan stars wane, Flickering like ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... the Moone, or any such like obseruation, but when you come to gather your Winter-fruit, which is the Pippin, Peare-maine, Russetting, Blacke-annat, and such like, you shall in any wise gather them in the wane of the Moone, and, as before I said, in the dryest season that may be, and if it be so that your store be so great that you cannot gather all in that season, yet you shall get so much of your principall fruit, the youngest and fairest, as is possible to be ...
— The English Husbandman • Gervase Markham

... composition of the nebulae,—those clusters of stars and nebulous matter which had previously proved such a problem to astronomers. The remarkable phenomenon of a periodical change of intensity in certain stars, which wax and wane in radiance like a revolving light, had also excited his attention. Further, he had entered upon the experiments which ultimately showed that the Sun positively moves; that in this, as in other respects, the magnificent orb of day must be ranged ...
— The Story of the Herschels • Anonymous

... the afternoon sun had begun to wane, the big pails were filled and shaken down and filled again, the pickers had eaten almost as much more, and surfeited, hot, and thirsty they found themselves on the edge of the slash ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith

... where'er the sun Does his successive journeys run,— His kingdom spread from shore to shore, Till moons shall wax and wane no more. ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman

... into Naples station, and Bates, the house-steward—the marks of haste and keen anxiety upon him—pushed his way up to the carriage door, he could report there was this amount of hope even yet, that Richard still lived, though his strength was as that of an infant and whether it would wax or wane wholly none as ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... LOST ISLE, some Iceland call the reign Whereof a royal lady fills the throne; Whose charms (before those charms all beauties wane) Are such as Heaven had dealt to her alone. The shield you see she sends to Charlemagne, But with the pact and purpose plainly shown, He should confer it on the knight, whose worth Is, in his judgment, ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto

... an hour the struggle continued; then its vigour began to wane. The heaviest British metal went out of action; some time later the field batteries discontinued their activities. The volume of firing in the advance trenches dwindled, was fiercely renewed some half a dozen times, died away to normal. ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph

... Equilateral Triangle. Thus, in the most brutal and formidable off the soldier class—creatures almost on a level with women in their lack of intelligence—it is found that, as they wax in the mental ability necessary to employ their tremendous penetrating power to advantage, so do they wane in the power ...
— Flatland • Edwin A. Abbott

... hills that cover them increase or are worn away. Much more is this obvious in the case of ephemeral man, of his thoughts, his works, and everything wherewith he has to do, he who within the period of a few short years is doomed to appear, wax, wane, and vanish. ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard

... old and wishes new We crown our cups again, And here's to you, and here's to you With love that ne'er shall wane! And may you keep, at sixty-seven, The joy of earth, the hope of heaven, And fame well-earned, and friendship true, And peace that comforts every pain, And faith that fights the battle through, And all ...
— Music and Other Poems • Henry van Dyke

... thy vision Loved faces shall wane, And thy heart-strings thrill wildly With anguish and pain; The voices that now Are as faint as the tone Of the Zephyr, that stirs not The rose on its throne, Shall burst on thy soul,— An orchestra divine, With seraph and cherub ...
— Indian Legends and Other Poems • Mary Gardiner Horsford

... been blazing in the heavens of late a new star, that burst upon astonished astronomers in a void spot; but its brilliancy, though far transcending that of our sun, soon began to wane, and before long, apparently, there will be blackness again where there was blackness before. So all lights but His are temporary as well as derived, and men 'willing for a season to rejoice' in the fleeting splendours, and to listen to ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren

... father's fortunes appear to have begun to wane soon after his marriage. At that time he would have passed, I suppose, for a rich man, according to the estimate of riches in those days. But bad times came, and very bad times they were, such as we know little about, despite all the grumbling of this modern era. Nottingham, ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton

... by no means arrested. Like the nations of Europe, China has had its evolution; the causes were analagous, its destiny the same. This is especially felt in the history of its painting. When the potent inspiration of the Southern School began to wane, the style of the North took the upper ...
— Chinese Painters - A Critical Study • Raphael Petrucci

... maintaining that she was not mistaken when she assured them that she had given birth to one. The midwife with great effrontery told her that the new moon was unfavourable to childbirth, and that she must wait for the wane, when it would be easier as matters ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE COUNTESS DE SAINT-GERAN—1639 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... moon that looks for us again—How oft hereafter will she wax and wane; How oft hereafter, rising, look for us Through this same ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers

... age is in the wit is out,'" quotes Gower in his turn, who can never resist the longing to take the wind out of somebody's sails; "and, after all, The Everlasting is not a youth! No doubt his intellect is on the wane." ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford

... rapidly down the street, whistling "Kathleen Mavourneen" unconsciously. Did he dream the simple faith of boyhood had reached its culmination, and was henceforth to wane? ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas

... dread a decline of spirits. Mine were rapidly on the wane. By the time we stopped at the Old Colony depot they were low, indeed. And the hardest of all was, that I would not, for my life, let my companion know. It was four o'clock in the afternoon, and already quite dark. The atmosphere was heavy and chill; the sky ominous with clouds. I had an ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene

... yit!" he continued; "bekase" (he lowered his voice) "on windy nights, whenst the moon is on the wane, she is viewed kerryin' the baby along the bredge—kerryin' it clear over, safe an' sound, like she thought she oughter done, I reckon, in that one minute, whilst she stood an' screamed an' surveyed what she hed done. That child would hev been nigh ter ...
— The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... walking low on the hills, and singing to her lyre; the fawn beside her, with the gleam of light and sunrise on its ear and breast. Those of you who are often out in the dawntime know that there is no moon so glorious as that gleaming crescent, though in its wane, ascending ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin

... at present, when we are just entering on our second Arctic night, which we hope is to be a longer, and probably also a colder, one than any people before us have experienced. There is appreciably less light every day; soon there will be none; but the good spirits do not wane with the light. It seems to me that we are more uniformly cheerful than we have ever been. What the reason of this is I cannot tell; perhaps just custom. But certainly, too, we are well off—in clover, as the saying is. We are drifting gently, but it is to be hoped surely, on through ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen

... of my Delight who know'st no wane, The Moon of Heav'n is rising once again: How oft hereafter rising shall she look Through this same ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam • Omar Khayyam

... all the astronomers. At first she showed me some gratitude; but since I have been confined, if I address her in her increase, she is yet too weak to act in my favour; if I address her when she is full, she is surrounded with clouds and mist; but if in her wane, all her malignant influences are at my service. Defluxions, rheumatisms, catarrhs are showered down upon me. I endeavour actually to deliver myself from this last mark of her beneficence. Ah! if I could get hold of her some day, she would find that she ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various

... Brandywine Creek, and as the market-men would persist in calling it after its chief haunt, it will probably bear the historical name until it passes wholly out of favor. Its popularity is already on the wane, because of its dry texture and insipid flavor, but its bright color, good size, and especially its firmness and remarkable carrying qualities, will ever lead to its ready sale in the market. It is not a tall, vigorous grower, except in very rich land. ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe

... a deep-toned bell Sways back and forth, Grief tolling out the knell For thee, my friend, so young and yet so great. Dead—thou art dead. The destiny of men Is ever thus, like waves upon the main To rise, grow great, fall with a crash and wane, While still another grows to wane again, Dead—thou art dead. Would that I too were gone And that the grass which rustles on thy grave Might also over mine forever wave Made living by the death it grew upon. I ask not Orpheus-like, that Pluto give Thy soul ...
— Thoughts, Moods and Ideals: Crimes of Leisure • W.D. Lighthall

... fluttered between the combatants and rendered any further encounter for the time impossible. They could not close again with the girl between them, and the stranger, his anger holding its breath, glanced at her with sudden interest, stayed his angry growl, suffered rage to wane out of his eyes and frank ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts

... quite—and rusty gratings black, Along the yawning mouths of dreary vaults— And epitaphs unread—and mouldering bones. Alone, forlorn, the only breathing thing In that unknown, forgotten cemetery, Reeling, I strove to stand, and all things round Flicker'd, and wavering, seem'd to wane away, And earth became a blank; the tide of life Ebbing, as backward ebbs the billowy sea, Wave after wave, till nought is left behind, Save casual foam-bells on ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various

... The daylight began to wane. The big, low room was only lighted by two small windows, and in the twilight that filled the room he saw—now that he had made up his mind to rise—that the white face opposite him was smiling. He felt quite embarrassed; was that meant for him? Yes, ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig

... The gaudy decorations of the Piazza and the Corso, the numberless shows and booths, and the brilliant costumes, could not make it appear a season of jollity and mirth, for the note of discord in the hearts of the people was much too strong. King Carnival's might was on the wane, and neither the influence of the Church nor the encouragement of the State was able to bolster up the superannuated monarch. There was no communicativeness in even what little fun there was going, and the day was a long and a tedious one. As I was strolling around in rather a melancholy ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various

... unusual warmth, and if Marcy's patriotism had been on the wane, his brother's earnest words would have infused new life and strength into it. If the Northern people, with their immense resources, were animated by the same spirit, it would not be long, he told himself, before the old flag would crowd its secession rival to the wall. ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon

... her face. Slowly she droops back in her chair, the drowsy smile still on her lips; the gardenias drop into her lap; her arms relax, her head falls forward on her breast. And the voices behind the screen talk on, and the sounds of joy from the supper-party wax and wane. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... reason England, in public and private collections, has more 'Claudes' than are held by any other country. But Claude's admirers, among whom Sir George Beaumont, the great art critic of his generation, took the lead, have had their day, and, if they have not by any means passed away, are on the wane. ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler

... of the powers of the burgess-assemblies, their practical influence on state affairs began, particularly towards the close of this period, to wane. First of all, the extension of the bounds of Rome deprived her primary assembly of its true basis. As an assembly of the freeholders of the community, it formerly might very well meet in sufficiently full numbers, and might very well know its own wishes, even without discussion; but the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... Creditor, Long may he reign! May his Faith never waver, His Trust never wane. May the Lord make him gentle And gracious and gay, Yet quick to resent The least offer of pay: May he soften his heart As he softened, we're told, To the Israelite's 'touch,' The Egyptian of old; And when on his last Long account he shall look, The angel will say As ...
— Happy Days • Oliver Herford



Words linked to "Wane" :   wax, dip, lessen, decline, drop, diminution, fall, ebb, go down, waning, decrease, wear on, diminish



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