Literary notes about Senescent (AI summary)
The term senescent is often employed in literature to evoke the fading, decaying quality of both time and form. Poets use it to describe lingering, aged atmospheres—as when the night itself is cast in its senescent glow, suggesting the slow approach of dawn ([1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7])—or to imbue nature with melancholy, such as a senescent moon that adds an aura of bygone vibrancy or lost beauty to the scene ([8], [9]). At the same time, writers extend its usage to characterize human aging and decline, portraying physical deterioration or a weary emotional state in figures whose bodies or manners suggest the inevitable passage of time ([10], [11], [12], [13]). In other contexts, senescent adorns structures and landscapes, lending a poetic dignity to ruins or ancient edifices that still command respect despite their diminished vigor ([14], [15]). This wide-ranging use underscores the word’s inherent power to symbolize the inexorable, sometimes mournful, progression of time.
- And now as the night was senescent, And star-dials pointed to morn, And
— from Complete Poetical Works by Bret Harte - And now, as the night was senescent 30 And star-dials pointed to morn, As the star-dials hinted of morn, At the end of our path a liquescent
— from Selections from Poe by Edgar Allan Poe - [Pg 139] IV And now, as the night was senescent, And star-dials pointed to morn,— As the sun-dials hinted of morn,
— from The Blue Poetry Book7th. Ed. - And now as the night was senescent And star-dials pointed to morn—
— from The Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe Including Essays on Poetry by Edgar Allan Poe - "The night was senescent, And star-dials pointed to morn, And the star-dials hinted of morn," as in Poe's mystic poem.
— from Highways and Byways in London by Emily Constance Baird Cook - And now as the night was senescent, And star-dials pointed to morn, And car-drivers hinted of morn, At the end of the path a liquescent
— from The Book of Humorous Verse - "And now as the night was senescent, And the star-dials hinted of morn, At the end of our path a liquescent
— from Visions and Revisions: A Book of Literary Devotions by John Cowper Powys - In the jewelled light of a senescent moon, his wife and little daughter gazed at them curiously, without semblance of pity or fear.
— from Visionaries by James Huneker - He sat in the stone chair and before him hung the morning star and the senescent moon.
— from Sweet Rocket by Mary Johnston - He had noted with disgust, however, the stooped shoulders and white imperial of the silk-hatted man beside her, and the senescent line of his back.
— from Youth and the Bright Medusa by Willa Cather - By that sort of piety to which senescent female sinners everywhere and at all times devote themselves she secured new friends.
— from Lucretia BorgiaAccording to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day by Ferdinand Gregorovius - … Whatever her charm, she was no longer in her first youth, and only unripe fruit could sting that senescent palate.
— from Black Oxen by Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton - But they do not love Mozart on the one hand, nor Wagner and [Pg 194] the senescent Verdi on the other.
— from Modern Musical Drift by W. J. (William James) Henderson - Its senescent glamour lingered upon the towering plinth and fluted pillars of the temple of the Sacred Bo-tree, seven miles south of Gaya-town.
— from Caravans By Night: A Romance of India by Harry Hervey - A senescent city; mostly antiquated Spanish architecture,—ponderous archways and earthquake-proof walls.
— from Two Years in the French West Indies by Lafcadio Hearn
