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Waft   Listen
verb
Waft  v. t.  (past & past part. wafted; pres. part. wafting)  
1.
To give notice to by waving something; to wave the hand to; to beckon. (Obs.) "But soft: who wafts us yonder?"
2.
To cause to move or go in a wavy manner, or by the impulse of waves, as of water or air; to bear along on a buoyant medium; as, a balloon was wafted over the channel. "A gentle wafting to immortal life." "Speed the soft intercourse from soul to soul, And waft a sigh from Indus to the pole."
3.
To cause to float; to keep from sinking; to buoy. (Obs.) Note: This verb is regular; but waft was formerly sometimes used, as by Shakespeare, instead of wafted.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Waft" Quotes from Famous Books



... 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 ...
— Discourse on Criticism and of Poetry (1707) - From Poems On Several Occasions (1707) • Samuel Cobb

... of the world would have been! The worst of it is he mightn't have remembered to make you a woman; and in any case, things being so nicely settled as they are, I don't think I want to be a man. I waft a kiss to you on the wings of the wind. It's ponente to-day, so it ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine

... there stole a new sound, the silken ripple of the flags as one by one they were set fluttering from the crosses, like a soft, growing, triumphant chorus of those to come whose lives were to be made safe because these had died. As if the flag would waft back to the Homeland, and the stricken mothers and fathers, sisters and sweethearts, some idea of the greatness of the cause in which they died to comfort ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill

... thy beams, Aurora, Light me to early death, Waft her my longing, Waft her my latest breath! I leave thee, Leonora, ah, I ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon

... spirits 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

... with every part in sweet accord, Th' adoring breezes waft it up, on wings Of beauty-incense, giving to the Lord The ...
— Alaska Days with John Muir • Samual Hall Young

... vows deny'd, Sleep'st by the fable of Bellerus old, 160 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 haples youth. ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... this condition a day and a night; and, when morning dawned, I caught sight of the sails of a vessel shining afar off, nor did the waves cease to drive me and the winds to waft me on, till I reached the ship, whose sails I had sighted. The sailors took me up and I looked and behold, my babe was amongst them: so I threw myself upon him and said, 'O folk, this is my child: how and whence ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... description of the great battle at the islet, and our heroic defence of the banyan tree. He declares it to be his intention to enclose the manuscript in the hold of the vessel and launch her when half-way to Tewa, in the assured confidence that the winds and waves will waft it to its destination, or to use his own phrase,—"that we shall yet be heard ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer

... seven years of age, the Duke of Orleans assumed the reins of government, as regent, during his minority. Law now found himself in a more favourable position. The tide in his affairs had come, which, taken at the flood, was to waft him on to fortune. The regent was his friend, already acquainted with his theory and pretensions, and inclined, moreover, to aid him in any efforts to restore the wounded credit of France, bowed down to the earth ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... perfection of a summer evening, with neither dust nor insects to be a drawback, with just wind enough to make tremulous the shadows on the lawn, and to waft, from the garden above the house, the odours of a thousand flowers. The garden itself did not surpass, or even equal, in beauty of arrangement, many of the gardens of the neighbourhood; but it was very beautiful in ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson

... 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 ...
— Little Miss Grouch - A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's - Maiden Transatlantic Voyage • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... shape of a turning tide and a consequent roll, played for once into the hands of Rupert Gunning. The boat swayed slowly, but deeply, and a waft of steam blew across Miss Fitzroy's face. It was not mere steam; it had been among hot oily things, stealing and giving odour. Fanny Fitz was not ill, but she knew that she had her limits, and that conversation, save of the usual ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross

... 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 rocking itself ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel

... I yield you 10 Due entertainment, Celestial quire? Me rather, bright guests! with your wings of upbuoyance Bear aloft to your homes, to your banquets of joyance, That the roofs of Olympus may echo my lyre! 15 Hah! we mount! on their pinions they waft up my soul! O give me the nectar! O fill me ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... the fruit is ripe for love, the voice Of Aphrodite bruiteth it abroad, The while she guards the yet unripened growth. On the fair richness of a maiden's bloom Each passer looks, o'ercome with strong desire, With eyes that waft the wistful dart of love. Then be not such our hap, whose livelong toil Did make our pinnace plough the mighty main: Nor bring we shame upon ourselves, and joy Unto my foes. Behold, a twofold home— One of the king's and one the people's gift— Unbought, 'tis yours to hold,—a gracious ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus

... Jersey, U.S.A., Dec. 20, '81. DEAR SIR:—Your letter asking definite endorsement to your translation of my "Leaves of Grass" into Russian is just received, and I hasten to answer it. Most warmly and willingly I consent to the translation, and waft a prayerful God speed to ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... to us as a corpse, which bit by bit we painfully dissected. We never glimpsed the living, growing thing, never experienced the Spirit, the same spirit that was able magically to waft me from a wintry Lyme Street to the South Seas, the energizing, electrifying Spirit of true achievement, of life, of God himself. Little by little its flames were smothered until in manhood there seemed no ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... gloriously received by the Irish,—and so you ought. But don't let them kill you with claret and kindness at the national dinner in your honour, which, I hear and hope, is in contemplation. If you will tell me the day, I'll get drunk myself on this side of the water, and waft you an applauding hiccup ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... and his greater height raises it into a favourable current of air—the glistening balloon sails off. It flies, it soars; no, it is coming down! The children shout at it, as if to drive it up, but it wilfully descends—they rush beneath, they try to waft it on high with their breath—there is a collision between Mary and Blanche—Aubrey perceives a taste of soapy water—the bubble is no more—it is vanished in ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... himself comfortable in a chair, and Alma sat over against him. The man was loud, conceited, vulgar; but, after all, he composed very sweet music, which promised to take the public ear; and he brought with him a waft from the happiness of old days; and how could one expect small proprieties of a bohemian, an artist? Alma began to talk ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing

... WAFT [said to be from the Anglo-Saxon weft], more correctly written wheft. It is any flag or ensign, stopped together at the head and middle portions, slightly rolled up lengthwise, and hoisted at different positions at the after-part of a ship. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... on the deck. At other times the memory of his "mother" would steal over his spirit and in a sweet tenor he would croon the old-time hymns and the old ship would creak its loving accompaniment, and the unopened shell-fish would waft the ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett

... Awhile thy car, Thy Cupid, dove, and sparrow, To waft my fair, Like my own star, To give ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 368, May 2, 1829 • Various

... devil. Oh, get out before I throw you," roared Leslie, and John vanished with the waft of a blue gown, while Millicent's book crashed against the door close ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss

... of vast unnumbered countries, hear! Thine enemy Khum-baba do not fear, My hands will waft the winds for thee. Thus I reveal! Khum-baba falls! thine enemy! ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous

... the one, without bringing back the remembrance of the feeling of the other. If we have enjoyed the moonlight in pleasant scenes, in happy hours, with friends that we loved though the sight of it may not always make us directly remember them, yet it brings with it a waft from the feeling of the old times sweet as long as ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell

... are up in good time, and as soon as ever we get our baggage clear of the Customs we go sight-seeing. In our nostrils is the subtle scent of India; it has something of dust in it, but is not chiefly dust, as in Egypt; there is a waft of wood-smoke, and a strong flavour of mixed spices, and some hint of sweet flowers, and many other things not so agreeable. It is a blend that any Anglo-Indian knows, and if he smelt it suddenly when he was thousands of miles away, with the daisied grass beneath ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton

... to wreathe a victor's brow?' Reluctantly and slow, the maid The unwelcome summoning obeyed, And when a distant bugle rung, In the mid-path aside she sprung:— 'List, Allan-bane! From mainland cast I hear my father's signal blast. Be ours,' she cried, 'the skiff to guide, And waft him from the mountain-side.' Then, like a sunbeam, swift and bright, She darted to her shallop light, And, eagerly while Roderick scanned, For her dear form, his mother's band, The islet far behind her lay, And she had ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... set in one direction, and we may sail from isle to isle over a sunny sea, dallying with the time, secure of a cloudless sky and of the greetings of innocence and love wheresoever the breeze may waft us. There is in truth a holy purity, an innocent naivete, a childlike grace and simplicity, a freshness, a fearlessness, an utter freedom from affectation, a yearning after all things truthful, lovely and of good report, in the productions ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... sweeps, where scarce a summer smiles, On Bhering's rocks, or Greenland's naked isles; Cold on his midnight watch the breezes blow, From wastes that slumber in eternal snow, And waft across the waves' tumultuous roar, The wolf's long howl ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper

... in haughty procession shall ride, On Jehovah's proud altars unfurl'd! While anthems and priests waft to heaven his praise, For the slaughter and wreck ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... 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 favorable 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, 'tis your office to prepare The tiny cup that then shall minister, Slow sipped, its liquor to thy lady's lips; And now bethink thee whether she ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells

... resolv'd with utmost power; And he at night would swim to Hero's tower, From whence he meant to Sestos' forked bay To bring her covertly, where ships must stay, Sent by his father, throughly rigg'd and mann'd, To waft her safely to Abydos' strand. There leave we him; and with fresh wing pursue Astonish'd Hero, whose most wished view I thus long have forborne, because I left her So out of countenance, and her spirits bereft her: To look of one abashed is impudence, When of slight faults he hath ...
— Hero and Leander and Other Poems • Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman

... the tender sides of both, their legs and wings close pinioned to their ribs, so was this pair of friends transfixed, till down they fell joined in their lives, joined in their deaths; so closely joined, that Charon would mistake them both for one, and waft them over Styx for half his fare.' The humour of the piece is delightful, and it matters not a whit for the enjoyment of it, that the ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis

... at peace. Fly from men who are false and cruel, and quit the tumult of their dusty strife, for this quiet, lonely shade. Over thee I my arms will fling, fairer than the lodge's roof. I will breathe a perfume like that of flowers over thy happy evening rest. In my bark canoe I'll waft thee o'er the waters of the sky-blue lake. I will deck the folds of thy mantle with the sun's last rays. Come, and on the mountain free rove a fairy ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews

... the Velin coast, And in a peaceful grave my corpse compose; Or, if a nearer way your mother shows, Without whose aid you durst not undertake This frightful passage o'er the Stygian lake, Lend to this wretch your hand, and waft him o'er To the sweet banks of yon forbidden shore." Scarce had he said, the prophetess began: "What hopes delude thee, miserable man? Think'st thou, thus unintomb'd, to cross the floods, To view the Furies and infernal gods, And visit, without leave, the dark abodes? Attend the term ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil

... the trade? No—you stir up the 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 grandeur, pride ...
— Anti-Slavery Opinions before the Year 1800 - Read before the Cincinnati Literary Club, November 16, 1872 • William Frederick Poole

... only from the hair of the belles but also from the wigs of the beaux. Its peculiar scent mingled with a dozen varieties of the strong perfumes in vogue, and the combination was punctuated by a dash of oil from a smoky lamp or two in the vestibule and an occasional waft of burnt tallow and pitch from the torches of the link ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce

... 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 do; as well to keep up the vogue you have in ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various

... speck of cloud was seen in the sky above, and not a ripple on the glassy face of the deep. All the ships had been put in order, new vessels had been built, the warriors had burnished their armor and overhauled their arms a thousand times; and yet no breeze arose to waft them across the sea. And they began to murmur, and to talk bitterly against Agamemnon ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin

... dark-veined marble was to be inscribed with the names of buried ones. They doubted, too, whether the form of Lilias Fay could appertain to a creature of this earth, being so very delicate and growing every day more fragile, so that she looked as if the summer breeze should snatch her up and waft her heavenward. But still she watched the daily growth of the temple, and so did old Walter Gascoigne, who now made that spot his continual haunt, leaning whole hours together on his staff and giving as deep attention to the work as though it had been indeed ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... order of Compositae, have aeronautic apparatus—tufts, plumes, fly-wheels—which keep them up in the air and enable them to take distant voyages. In this way, at the least breath, the seeds of the dandelion, surmounted by a tuft of feathers, fly from their dry receptacle and waft ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre

... though not literally sea-girt has all the advantages of an island, being accessible to every wind that blows, and can invite to its bosom or waft from its shore all products, since it is peninsular; whilst by land it is the emporium of many markets, as being ...
— On Revenues • Xenophon

... streaming milk, the earth her grain, And may the heaven give never-failing rain, The winds waft happiness to all that breathes, And all that lives, live free ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka

... 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 of considering where ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... ptin, even when they accept Islam. Some have dared to break the rule, and they have become ill with fever and diarrhoea, accompanied by eruptions, abscesses, and open sores on the arms and legs. The remedy is to burn the bones of the fish and waft the smoke over the patient. For internal use the bones pulverised and mixed with water ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz

... prow from its fatal course, no Sun of Righteousness will ever brighten for him the dreary expanse of waters; storms and whirlwinds will thicken in gloom, on his "voyage of life," and no favoring gales will ever waft his shattered bark to a ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth

... warbling vireo, and also watched a sandpiper teetering about the edge of the water, while a red-shafted flicker dashed across the lake to a pine tree on the opposite side. As I left this attractive valley, the hermit thrushes seemed to waft me a sad farewell. ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser

... the torch blows harder than at first, and there is enough air to waft it backwards, so there will be an opening at the end, I am sure. That is what I ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... 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 thoughts, that I ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft

... the rocks; the fish was, however, entangled by a line and hook it had swallowed; and the action of the fish-hawk in attempting to tear the fish away was wonderfully fine, the feathers were raised about the head, the eye was fierce, and the sidelong waft of the wings was most natural. The study was all the more interesting from the fact that both bird and fish were poised in air without any visible means of support, the case enclosing them being of glass all around. How it was managed was easy for ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne

... 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 the skies. ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous

... nocturnes is the one in E flat, Op. 9, No. 2. In fact it is so popular that when any one is asked to play "Chopin's Nocturne," this one is meant. Because it is popular, it is sneered at by some critics, but it possesses a lyric beauty quite its own and "sometimes surprises even the weary teacher with a waft of unexpected freshness, like the fleeting odor from an old and much used school book in which violets have been pressed." A sustained love song, it ends with a cadence that should be played with a rippling ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb

... Pyrate. Drones sucke not Eagles blood, but rob Bee-hiues: It is impossible that I should dye By such a lowly Vassall as thy selfe. Thy words moue Rage, and not remorse in me: I go of Message from the Queene to France: I charge thee waft me safely ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... and waves so soon to overwhelm them. And in our more ordinary everyday humour—if it chance to rise above what in our humble opinion ought to be its maximum, a gentle refreshing breeze, just enough to waft sweet woodland sounds, or ripple the quiet stream—why, it discomposes and discomforts us, whistling, howling, and rattling among slates and chimney-tops, and making whirligigs of the dust, in the town; and in the country, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various

... Lilith cried As near she drew, down-bending tender 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 ...
— Lilith - The Legend of the First Woman • Ada Langworthy Collier

... which the sky gradually cleared. The sea, though still rough, presented none of those mountainous waves that a short time before had threatened to annihilate us at every descent, and there was just sufficient breeze to waft us along at a brisk rate with the assistance ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat

... curious to observe the triumph of slight incidents over the mind:—What incredible weight they have in forming and governing our opinions, both of men and things—that trifles, light as air, shall waft a belief into the soul, and plant it so immoveably within it—that Euclid's demonstrations, could they be brought to batter it in breach, should not all ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne

... water lapped the shores, the fisherman thought that they too were transformed. They began to blossom and waft their perfumes. A soft sheen spread over them and they also took on a beauty which they had never ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof

... sayl to seche after hauen Or any swinging sail to seek after haven, Bot flote forthe with e flyt of e felle wynde[gh] But floated forth with the force of the fell winds. Wheder-warde so e water wafte, hit rebounde Whither-ward so (as) the water waft, it rebounded, Ofte hit roled on-rounde & rered on ende Oft it rolled around and reared on end, Nyf our lorde hade ben her lode[gh]-mon hem had lumpen harde Had our Lord not been their (pilot) leader ...
— Early English Alliterative Poems - in the West-Midland Dialect of the Fourteenth Century • Various

... hours, too swift, too sweet, And waft this message o'er To all we miss, from all we meet ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... fresh-tarred craft, 'gainst every opposer Close by the sea-shore, till the curved-necked bark shall Waft back again the well-beloved hero 40 O'er the way of ...
— Beowulf - An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem • The Heyne-Socin

... 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 ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller

... this, Mr Hurry," said Andrew Macallan, our surgeon's mate, who had come to sea for the first time. "Just a wee bit more wind to waft us on our way to the scene of action, and we may well ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston

... 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 ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm

... from the tongues of men She utters, scarce articulate: the bay Of wolves, and barking as of dogs, were mixed With that fell chant; the screech of nightly owl Raising her hoarse complaint; the howl of beast And sibilant hiss of snake — all these were there; And more — the waft of waters on the rock, The sound of forests and the thunder peal. Such was her voice; but soon in clearer tones Reaching to Tartarus, she raised her song: "Ye awful goddesses, avenging power Of Hell upon the damned, and Chaos huge Who striv'st to mix ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan

... for 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 ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson

... it can scarce be felt, a waft of air blows over us, the first sweet breath of summer. A veil of faint and subtle perfume drifts around us. The vines with the tender grape give a good smell. And evermore as its enchantment is cast about us we are as once we were when first ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood

... now the wind comes whistling loud, To snatch and waft it, as a cloud, Or giant phantom in a shroud; It spreads, it curls, it mounts and whirls, At length a mighty wing unfurls, And then, away! but where, none knows, Or ever ...
— Parker's Second Reader • Richard G. Parker

... her. The hall, as it were, became lighter and simpler from their smile; the strained, unnatural silence was enlivened by their faces and movements. The greasy glitter of gold on the uniforms dimmed and softened. A waft of bold assurance, the breath of living power, reached the mother's heart and roused it. On the benches behind her, where up to that time the people had been waiting in crushed silence, a ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky

... brasking her sides 'gainst the weeds, Came in as good time as good time could be, To give us a cast o'er an arm of the sea; And bestowing our horses before and abaft, O'er god Neptune's wide cod-piece gave us a waft; Where scurvily landing at foot of the fort, Within very few paces we entered the port, Where another King's Head invited me down, For indeed I have ever been true to ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... 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 chanced to bear, but finding us out of range, they gave over wasting ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol

... 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 flirts from ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various

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

... 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 Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... ore. Here we shall see the imagination touching in some deeper sterner colours to the sketches flung forth by the fancy; and in the spirit of unreal creation, a wild self-will which rejoices to waft into the presence of the beautiful, and of unbridled laughter, cold blasts from the region of pure affright. There is in this, however, no prostration of strength—quite the reverse! Not a nervous and enfeebled sensibility, yielding itself up to a diseased taste for pain.—No child fascinated ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various

... home and cared for him right courteously; but soon he sailed away in his broken boat, thanking Viking warmly for his kindness. "If I could only leave thee a gift!" said he. "Perhaps in the morning the ocean will waft ...
— Northland Heroes • Florence Holbrook

... she noticed that the Arlington was beginning to waft signals in the young man's direction with her fan. Therefore, before she took her next partner's arm, she saw Louis sit down beside his delighted mother, and talking to her in a manner so completely absorbed that he never so ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett

... "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. ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... peaceful choice of all, Or good or ill humanity—welcoming the darker odds, the dross: —Foams and ferments the wine? it serves to purify—while the heart pants, life glows: These stormy gusts and winds waft precious ships, Swell'd ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman

... which the little party lay utterly exhausted and overcome, sunk in a deep sleep, which partook more of the nature of a swoon. They were only a few yards away from the mist, and in such a position that, had a breeze arisen to waft it toward them, the probabilities were that they would never ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn

... we faithful to this present trust, Clasp to a heart resigned this faithful Must; Though deepest dark our efforts should enfold, Unwearied mine to find the vein of gold; Forget not oft to waft the prayer on high;— The rosy dawn ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... Venus, That I may send them where Caesario strays; And while he smoothes their silver wings, and gives them For drink the honey of his lips, I'll bid them Coo in his ear, his Amelrosa's happy! Joy, joy, my soul! Bound, my gay dancing heart! Waft me, ye winds! To bear so blest a creature Earth is not worthy! Loved by those I love, I've all my soul e'er wished, my hopes e'er fancied, My father's friendship, and Caesario's heart! Leave me but these, and, fortune ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various

... otherwise have wholly performed ourselves. In navigation is it possible to doubt that the powers of nature—the buoyancy of the water, the impulse of the wind, and the polarity of the magnet—contribute fully as much as the labours of the sailor to waft our ships from one hemisphere to another? In bleaching and fermentation the whole processes are carried on by natural agents. And it is to the effects of heat in softening and melting metals, in preparing our food, and in warming our houses, that we owe many ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey

... me, and uttered O how oft, Hath Galatea spoke! waft some of them, Ye winds, I pray you, for the ...
— The Bucolics and Eclogues • Virgil

... as to allow him to think of something beside himself, he exerted himself to free me from confinement. He furnished me with faithful guides, by whose aid I reached the sea-coast. Here a Maltese vessel was waiting to waft me to a land of freedom and security. I can tell you, my friends, that from that time I was cured forever of all ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... time, toil, and money in oil-development here. Our traverse of those ninety miles of Athabasca Rapids has given us respect for the labor and determination which in this wilderness has erected these giant derricks. Looking at them, we waft a wish that the plucky prospector may reap his reward and abundantly strike oil. The Count tells us of striking one hundred and fifty feet of rock salt while "punching" one of his oil-shafts through the ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron

... 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

... Jesus is near; He is precious; He has my heart: let the union subsist for ever. Never let me leave Thee more; but through all the vicissitudes of life, keep me; and if I am entering upon my last year, let it be the best of all. Let the odours of the celestial world waft upon ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth

... century is closing I am going to my rest, Lord, lettest Thou Thy servant go in peace. But loud through all the bugles rings a cadence in mine ear, And on the winds my hopes of peace are strowed. Those winds that waft the voices that already I can hear Of the rooi-baatjes singing ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens

... 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

... wide your golden gates, O poet-landed month of June, And waft me, on your spicy breath, The melody of birds ...
— Ballads • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... lives may be as fierce and free As the waves o'er which we roam, But let not landsmen think that we Forget our native home; And when the winds shall waft us back To the shores from which they bore us, Amid the throng of mirth and song, We'll ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... about 77deg. E.; but whether you do or 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 ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen

... place where he speaks of his, passage over the Rhine to Germany, he says that, thinking it unworthy of the honour of the Roman people to waft over his army in vessels, he built a bridge that they might pass over dry-foot. There it was that he built that wonderful bridge of which he gives so particular a description; for he nowhere so willingly dwells upon his ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... the same. He had succeeded in his mission, his son had been appointed governor of New Jersey, and he looked forward to a life of honorable ease in his adopted city. Just before sailing he wrote to Lord Kames: "I am now 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 for the next. Grief at the ...
— Benjamin Franklin • Paul Elmer More

... markets like a hurricane; for it came at a luckless time. Prices tottered and crashed like towers in an earthquake. For two days Wall Street was a clamorous inferno of pale despair. All over the United States, wherever speculation had its devotees, went a waft of ruin, a plague of suicide. In Europe also not a few took with their own hands lives that had become pitiably linked to the destiny of a financier whom most of them had never seen. In Paris a well-known ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley

... "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 ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various

... every desire of every moment. This world is a bridge of straw over the roaring gulf 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 ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... birth behold Of worlds dream-born,—their fiery infant clime, Their teeming life, their epochs gray and cold, Peace kiss and blot their tarnished light and close Their leaden urns with gentleness. I shed The ashes of my silence on their snows,— Then waft them to my ...
— The Masque of the Elements • Herman Scheffauer

... were about, but here and there a guarded light betrayed sin still awake, and here and there a bell, calling the faithful to church, sounded a homely note of peace. The morning was desperately close, without a waft of air. She found the Abbot Milo at his lodging, in the act of setting off to mass at the church of Saint Martha. The sight of her wild ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett

... spoils, or even thy own, be mine. The man who suffers, loudly may complain; And rage he may, but he shall rage in vain. But this when time requires.—It now remains We launch a bark to plough the watery plains, And waft the sacrifice to Chrysa's shores, With chosen pilots, and with labouring oars. Soon shall the fair the sable ship ascend, And some deputed prince the charge attend: This Creta's king, or Ajax shall fulfil, Or wise Ulysses see perform'd our will; Or, if ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer

... in lively hope That when my change shall come Angels will hover round my bed, To waft ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain

... When, taking flight from his task-mistress Rome, The tired man doffs his load of troubling care. * * * * * Here the sea's bosom quivers in the wind; 'Tis no dead calm, but sweet serenity, Which bears the painted boat before the breeze, As though some maid at pains the heat to ban, Should waft a genial zephyr with her fan. No fisher needs to buffet the high seas, But whiles from bed or couch his line he casts, May see his captive in the toils below. * * * * * But, niggard Rome, thou giv'st how grudgingly! What the year's tale of days at Formiae For him who tied by work in town must ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler

... the flower-edged fountain where she had stood with Lawrence Selden and disowned her fate. She put back the dresses one by one, laying away with each some gleam of light, some note of laughter, some stray waft from the rosy shores of pleasure. She was still in a state of highly-wrought impressionability, and every hint of the past sent a lingering ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton

... going to do it, really, Mops! but I like to imagine it. I'd waft myself off of this balcony, and waft down to the scarlet of ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells

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

... and grown old, but Becky Thatcher just the same, seated in a chair which once was Mark Twain's and pouring tea at a table on which the author once wrote. And if the aroma of the cup she hands out to each visitor doesn't waft before his mind a vision of a curly-headed boy and a little girl with golden long-tails at play on the wharf of old Hannibal while the ancient packets ply up and down the rolling blue Mississippi, there is nothing whatever in the white ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer

... had difficulty in getting to sleep. And, for the first time in weeks, visions of Commencement failed to waft her off to dreams. She was hearing over and over, in a kind of lullaby, a deep, melodious voice: "Your daughter?—you're a man to be envied, sir!"—was seeing a pair of dark bright eyes, smiling into her own with a beam of ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin

... cried 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 ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... thrift may follow Fear, perfect love casteth out —, with hope, farewell Fearfully and wonderfully made Fears, saucy doubts and —, our hopes belied our Feast, bare imagination of a —of nectared sweets —of reason Feather, of his own, espied a —, a wit 's a —, to waft a Feature, cheated of Feel, would make us, must feel themselves Feelings, great, came to them Feels, meanest thing that Feet beneath her petticoat —like snails did creep Feet, standing with, reluctant Felicity, we make ...
— Familiar Quotations • Various

... sun was very fierce on the dusty, unslaked yard of the Wolfsberg, glaring down upon us like the mouth of a wide smelter's oven. Fat Fritz, the porter, in his arm-chair of a cell, had well-nigh dissolved into lard and running out at his own door. The Playmate's window was open, and I caught the waft of a fan to and fro. I judged therefore that my lady knew well that I was working out there in the heat, and was glad of it—being a spiteful ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

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

... been perfection, hardly a drop of rain, and just the gentlest breezes to waft them slowly along. A suitable soothing idle life for one who had but lately been near death. And each day Paul's strength returned, until his father began to hope they might still be home for his birthday the last day of July. They had crept up the coast of Italy now, when an absolute calm ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn

... We'll waft him up to the dining-room to the strains of the Blue Danubian Band. We'll give him "La Boheme" before the "poularde"; and the Maxixe during. A Terrible Turk shall give him coffee (with Coon accompaniment); and we'll send him home with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 29, 1914 • Various

... moons, and maidens, soon would lie afar Across some unknown, sure-dividing waste. Yet think not, though I fall upon the sad, And lingering listen to the fainting tones, Before I strike new chords that seize the old And waft their essence up the music-stair— Think not that he was always sad, nor dared To look the blank unknown full in the void: For he had hope in God, the growth of years, Ponderings, and aspirations from a child, And prayers and readings and repentances. Something within ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald

... take us home, you soft air-mothers, now our fathers the sunbeams are grown dull. Our green summer beauty is all draggled, and our faces are grown wan and wan; and the buds, the children whom we nourished, thrust us off, ungrateful, from our seats. Waft us down, you soft air-mothers, upon your wings to the quiet earth, that we may go to our home, as all things go, and become ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... 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 citadel. ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden

... shaped planet, peopled with Things whose enjoyment was to be in 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 ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... he—with his mate and their tiny brood—may swing secure through the sudden storms of fitful springs, and find shelter from the heats of summer, sewing it so tightly together that the rain cannot permeate it, nor the wild winds waft away the light beams and rafters of the swinging home, we do not quarrel with the little architect because he has industriously gleaned such materials as were needed for his purpose, because he has torn his leaves from the great forest book of nature. The leaves are freely given by ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... you had my power?" asked the East Wind of the Zephyr. "Why, when I start they hail me by storm signals all along the coast. I can twist off a ship's mast as easily as you can waft thistledown. With one sweep of my wing I strew the coast from Labrador to Cape Horn with shattered ship timber. I can lift and have often lifted the Atlantic. I am the terror of all invalids, and to keep me from piercing to the very marrow of their bones, men cut down forests for their ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... blame me that I have not the sense, and judgment, and steadiness of a waking, and a disenchanted, and a reasonable man, who knows what he is doing, and wherefore he does it. If one must walk with masks and spectres, who waft themselves from place to place as it were in vision rather than reality, it might shake the soundest faith and turn the wisest head. I sought, since I must needs avow my folly, the same Catherine Seyton with whom you made me first acquainted, and whom I most strangely ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... Charley helped me much in the finer affairs of the classics, for his perceptions were as delicate as his feelings. He would brood over an Horatian phrase as Keats would brood over a sweet pea or a violet; the very tone in which he would repeat it would waft me from it an aroma unperceived before. When it was his turn to come to my rooms, I would watch for his arrival almost as a lover for ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald

... sweet. A thousand different odors meet And mingle in its rare perfume, Such as the winds of summer waft At open ...
— The Golden Legend • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... brotherly, national, chivalrous; happy, unalloyed sentiment, free from ups and downs, from heats and chills, from rivalry, from caprice; and, indeed, from all mortal accidents but one—and why say one? methinks death itself does but suspend these gentle, rare, unselfish amities a moment, then waft them upward to ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade

... in Neptune's deep invisible paths, In tall ships richly built and ribbed with brass, To put a girdle round about the world, When they have done it (coming near their haven) Are fain to give a warning piece, and call A poor stayed fisherman, that never past His country's sight, to waft and guide them in: So when we wander furthest through the waves Of glassy glory and the gulfs of state, Topped with all titles, spreading all our reaches, As if each private arm would sphere the earth, We must to Virtue for her guide resort, Or we shall ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various

... narrow court before the chapel full of golden light and threw the black shadow of a cypress across the way that a file of Comaldolese monks were taking to the adjoining convent. They were talking cheerily together, and swung unheeding by in their white robes so near that I could almost feel the waft of them across the centuries that parted their ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells

... 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

... of Louis XVIII. M. de la Tour du Pin had, I believe, remained there with his majesty. M. de Lally and the Boyds inclined to Antwerp, where they might safely await the fate of Brussels, near enough for returning, should it weather the storm, yet within reach of vessels to waft them to the British shores ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay

... sails were 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 ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron

... No man yet upon earth ever boldly aspired, and faithfully obeyed his clear convictions of good without transmitting through his race an all but omnipotent energy. Winds waft, streams scatter, birds of the air carry in their beaks, each seed that drops in ripeness from the tree of life. The failures of man have been from infidelity to his faith. Infinitely grander consequences ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman

... little penthouses of their metal shields. Altitude now showed 2,437 feet, and still rising. Tachometers gave from 2,750 to 2,875 r.p.m. for the various propellers. Speed had gone above 190 miles per hour. No sign of man remained, save, very far below through a rift in the pale, moonlit waft of cloud, a tiny light against a coal-black plain of sea—the light of a slow, crawling steamer—a light which almost at once ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England

... call'd forth a short essay; Now trembling on the brink, with fear she sees This unknown clime, nor dares to trust the breeze. But here, no unfledg'd wing was ever crush'd; Be each rude blast within its cavern hush'd. Soft swelling gales may waft her on her way, Till, eagle-like, she eyes the fount of day: She then may dauntless soar, her tuneful voice May please each ear ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold

... its whole soul is concentrated in itself; yet not sluggishly and apathetically, for its body is throbbing with life and enjoyment. The mighty ocean is subservient to its pleasures. The rolling waves waft fresh and choice food within its reach, and the flow of the current feeds it without requiring an effort. Each atom of water that comes in contact with its delicate gills involves its imprisoned air to freshen and invigorate the creature's pellucid blood. Invisible to human eye, unless aided ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... houses, the women too had kept the tedious vigil, listening for every sound, dreading every bit of news, which the wind might waft in through the small, ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... than the ivy clasps the oak, Didst breathe a vow—mocking the gods with it— A vow which, false one, thou hast foully broke; That while the ravening wolf should hunt the flocks, The shipman's foe, Orion, vex the sea, And zephyrs waft the unshorn Apollo's locks, So long wouldst thou be fond, be true ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin



Words linked to "Waft" :   pennoncelle, float, blow, pennon, drift, penoncel



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