A grimly compelling way to evoke a louring sky.  Compare this ‘departing hope’ with Vasily Grossman’s description of the rising sun like a burst of hope.

‘Under a leaden-coloured sky, with a narrowing streak of yellow, like a departing hope.’

Source: George Eliot, Adam Bede (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985 (1859)), p. 418

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