If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small.

-Bible (Old Testament)
Proverbs 24:10.

How little, mark! that portion of the ball, Where, faint at best, the beams of science fall.

-Pope, Alexander
  The Dunciad, bk.3, l.83^4.

But from the first 'twas Peter's drift To be a kind of moral eunuch, He touched the hem of Nature's shift, Felt faintöand never dared uplift The closest, all-concealing tunic.

-Shelley, Percy Bysshe
  'Peter Bell theThird', pt.4, stanza11.

   O love, they die in yon rich sky, They faint on hill or field or river: Our echoes roll from soul to soul, And grow for ever and for ever.

-Tennyson
  The Princess, pt.4, added song, stanza 3.

Come into the garden, Maud, For the black bat, night, has flown, Come into the garden, Maud, I am here at the gate alone; Maud And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad, And the musk of the rose is blown. For a breeze of morning moves, And the planet of Love is on high, Beginning to faint in the light that she loves On a bed of daffodil sky.

-Tennyson
  Maud, pt.1, sect.22, stanza1, l.850^9.