Wistful

He has a wistful look on his face.

Her wistful smile belied the sadness she felt at having to leave.

Ah, this song makes me feel all wistful.

Her wistful smile betrayed the sadness she felt at having to leave.

The wistful and yearning "Franz Schubert" segues into the valedictory "Endless Endless", the closing track on Kraftwerk's Trans-Europe Express album.

It's Lulu Island, 3 August 2025. After supper—green figs tender with sunlight, sweet vinegar from yesterday’s pickled jar, and reheated Alfredo—I sat on the balcony and watched the conifer. Stillness below, a street without cars, without haste. My lime water, iced, caught the light. Michael, the Franco-Danish ufologist, has been in my conversations lately. We speak of inner things: the trance of smart devices, the mind’s eye dwindling. He says cafés aren’t cafés anymore. People forget how to look, how to linger. I tell him of Arthur in Japan—how he'd stare into blank walls like a monk gazing at emptiness. Lately I ask machines to speak like poets, and they do. They mimic Elizabethan verses and the old wistful lilt of Tagalog ballads. I pick blackberries along the path to Tim Hortons. "¡Moras!" I shout like a child. My friend Mora, whose blood flows with Andes mist, would smile. Today, I bought lemons. I meant limes, but lemons are all right. / blackberry morning— / a fig's ghost on my fingers / and the street still sleeps

His eyes grew wistful as he recalled his university days.

Her grey eyes, looking out on the violet of the night sky, the trees, and the crowd of hilarious onlookers who had not been invited to Buckingham Palace, had a patient and wistful expression.

There are few sights that leave a railway lover more wistful than a desolate railway viaduct no longer carrying tracks. As with tunnels, so much effort was made to conquer the landscape, yet so many now stand forlorn.