"Section VIII: Striking Similes" (pp225-278) from Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases (New York and London: Funk & Wagnalls, 1917) by Grenville Kleiser (1868-1953).
A - A blind rage like a fire swept over him
- A book that rends and tears like a broken saw
- A breath of melancholy made itself felt like a chill and sudden gust from some unknown sea
- A cloud in the west like a pall creeps upward
- A cloud like a flag from the sky
- A cluster of stars hangs like fruit in the tree
- A confused mass of impressions, like an old rubbish-heap
- A cry as of a sea-bird in the wind
- A dead leaf might as reasonably demand to return to the tree
- A drowsy murmur floats into the air like thistledown
- A face as imperturbable as fate
- A face as pale as wax
- A face tempered like steel
- A fatigued, faded, lusterless air, as of a caged creature
- A few pens parched by long disuse
- A figure like a carving on a spire
- A fluttering as of blind bewildered moths
- A giant galleon overhead, looked like some misty monster of the deep
- A glacial pang of pain like the stab of a dagger of ice frozen from a poisoned well
- A glance that flitted like a bird
- A great moon like a red lamp in the sycamore
- A grim face like a carved mask
- A hand icily cold and clammy as death
- A heart from which noble sentiments sprang like sparks from an anvil
- A jeweler that glittered like his shop
- A lady that lean'd on his arm like a queen in a fable of old fairy days
- A life, a Presence, like the air
- A life as common and brown and bare as the box of earth in the window there
- A light wind outside the lattice swayed a branch of roses to and fro, shaking out their perfume as from a swung censer
- A lightning-phrase, as if shot from the quiver of infallible wisdom
- A list of our unread books torments some of us like a list of murders
- A little breeze ran through the corn like a swift serpent
- A little weed-clogged ship, gray as a ghost
- A long slit of daylight like a pointing finger
- A memory like a well-ordered cupboard
- A mighty wind, like a leviathan, plowed the brine
- A mind very like a bookcase
- A mystery, soft, soothing and gentle, like the whisper of a child murmuring its happiness in its sleep
- A name which sounds even now like the call of a trumpet
- A note of despairing appeal which fell like a cold hand upon one's living soul
- A purpose as the steady flame
- A question deep almost as the mystery of life
- A quibbling mouth that snapped at verbal errors like a lizard catching flies
- A radiant look came over her face, like a sudden burst of sunshine on a cloudy day
- A reputation that swelled like a sponge
- A ruby like a drop of blood
- A shadow of melancholy touched her lithe fancies, as a cloud dims the waving of golden grain
- A silver moon, like a new-stamped coin, rode triumphant in the sky
- A slow thought that crept like a cold worm through all his brain
- A smile flashed over her face, like sunshine over a flower
- A soft and purple mist like a vaporous amethyst
- A soft haze, like a fairy dream, is floating over wood and stream
- A soul as white as heaven
- A sound like the throb of a bell
- A stooping girl as pale as a pearl
- A sudden sense of fear ran through her nerves like the chill of an icy wind
- A sweet voice caroling like a gold-caged nightingale
- A thin shrill voice like the cry of an expiring mouse
- A thing of as frail enchantment as the gleam of stars upon snow
- A vague thought, as elusive as the smell of a primrose
- A vanishing loveliness as tender as the flush of the rose leaf and as ethereal as the light of a solitary star
- A voice as low as the sea
- A voice soft and sweet as a tune that one knows
- A white bird floats there, like a drifting leaf
- Against a sky as clear as sapphire
- Age, like winter weather
- Agile as a leopard
- Agitated like a storm-tossed ship
- Air like wine
- All around them like a forest swept the deep and empurpled masses of her tangled hair
- All like an icicle it seemed, so tapering and cold
- All my life broke up, like some great river's ice at touch of spring
- All silent as the sheeted dead
- All sounds were lost in the whistle of air humming by like the flight of a million arrows
- All that's beautiful drifts away like the waters
- All the world lay stretched before him like the open palm of his hand
- All unconscious as a flower
- Alone, like a storm-tossed wreck, on this night of the glad New Year
- An anxiety hung like a dark impenetrable cloud
- An ardent face out-looking like a star
- An ecstasy which suddenly overwhelms your mind like an unexpected and exquisite thought
- An envious wind crept by like an unwelcome thought
- An ideal as sublime and comprehensive as the horizon
- An immortal spirit dwelt in that frail body, like a bird in an outworn cage
- An impudent trick as hackneyed as conjuring rabbits out of a hat
- An indefinable resemblance to a goat
- An isle of Paradise, fair as a gem
- An old nodding negress whose sable head shined in the sun like a polished cocoanut
- An omnibus across the bridge crawls like a yellow butterfly
- An undefined sadness seemed to have fallen about her like a cloud
- An unknown world, wild as primeval chaos
- An unpleasing strain, like the vibration of a rope drawn out too fast
- And a pinnace like a flutter'd bird came flying from afar
- And a tear like silver, glistened in the corner of her eye
- And all our thoughts ran into tears like sunshine into rain
- And at first the road comes moving toward me, like a bride waving palms
- And Dusk, with breast as of a dove, brooded
- And eyes as bright as the day
- And fell as cold as a lump of clay
- And her cheek was like a rose
- And here were forests ancient as the hills
- And many a fountain, rivulet, and pond, as clear as elemental diamond, or serene morning air
- And melting like the stars in June
- And night, as welcome as a friend
- And silence like a poultice comes to heal the blows of sound
- And spangled o'er with twinkling points, like stars
- And the smile she softly uses fills the silence like a speech
- As a child in play scatters the heaps of sand that he has piled on the seashore
- As a cloud that gathers her robe like drifted snow
- As a flower after a drought drinks in the steady plunging rain
- As a leaf that beats on a mountain
- As a lion grieves at the loss of her whelps
- As a man plowing all day longs for supper and welcomes sunset
- As a sea disturbed by opposing winds
- As amusing as a litter of likely young pigs
- As arbitrary as a cyclone and as killing as a pestilence
- As austere as a Roman matron
- As beautiful as the purple flush of dawn
- As blind as a mole
- As brief as sunset clouds in heaven
- As bright as sunlight on a stream
- As busy as a bee
- As cattle driven by a gadfly
- As chimney sweepers come to dust
- As clear as a whistle
- As clear as the parts of a tree in the morning sun
- As close as oak and ivy stand
- As delicate and as fair as a lily
- As delightful to the mind as cool well-water to thirsty lips
- As diamond cuts diamond
- As direct and unvarying as the course of a homing bird
- As distinct as night and morning
- As dry as desert dust
- As dumb as a fish
- As easily as the sun shines
- As easy as a turn of the hand
- As elastic as a steel spring
- As extinct as the dodo
- As faint as the memory of a sound
- As familiar to him as his alphabet
- As fatal as the fang of the most venomous snake
- As fleeting and elusive as our dreams
- As foam from a ship's swiftness
- As fresh and invigorating as a sea-breeze
- As full of eager vigor as a mountain stream
- As full of spirit as a gray squirrel
- As gay and busy as a brook
- As gently as the flower gives forth its perfume
- As gently as withered leaves float from a tree
- As graceful as a bough
- As grave as a judge
- As great as the first day of creation
- As high as heaven
- As I dropped like a bolt from the blue
- As I dwelt like a sparrow among the spires
- As if a door were suddenly left ajar into some world unseen before
- As impossible as to count the stars in illimitable space
- As in the footsteps of a god
- As inaccessible to his feet as the clefts and gorges of the clouds
- As inexorable as the flight of time
- As innocent as a new laid egg
- As iridescent as a soap bubble
- As locusts gather to a stream before a fire
- As mellow and deep as a psalm
- As men strip for a race, so must an author strip for the race with time
- As merry as bees in clover
- As nimble as water
- As one who has climbed above the earth's eternal snowline and sees only white peaks and pinnacles
- As pale as any ghost
- As patient as the trees
- As quick as the movement of some wild animal
- As quiet as a nun breathless with adoration
- As radiant as the rose
- As readily and naturally as ducklings take to water
- As reticent as a well-bred stockbroker
- As ruthlessly as the hoof of a horse tramples on a rose
- As shallow streams run dimpling all the way
- As simple as the intercourse of a child with its mother
- As sleep falls upon the eyes of a child tired with a long summer day of eager pleasure and delight
- As some vast river of unfailing source
- As stars that shoot along the sky
- As still as a stone
- As stupid as a sheep
- As sudden as a dislocated joint slipping back into place
- As summer winds that creep from flower to flower
- As supple as a step-ladder
- As swaggering and sentimental as a penny novelette
- As swift as thought
- As the accumulation of snowflakes makes the avalanche
- As the bubble is extinguished in the ocean
- As the dew upon the roses warms and melts the morning light
- As the fair cedar, fallen before the breeze, lies self-embalmed amidst the moldering trees
- As the light straw flies in dark'ning whirlwinds
- As the lightning cleaves the night
- As the loud blast that tears the skies
- As the slow shadows of the pointed grass mark the eternal periods
- As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance
- As though a rose should shut, and be a bud again
- As though Pharaoh should set the Israelites to make a pin instead of a pyramid
- As unapproachable as a star
- As weird as the elfin lights
- As well try to photograph the other side of the moon
- At extreme tension, like a drawn bow
- Away he rushed like a cyclone
- Awkward as a cart-horse
B - Babbling like a child
- Balmy in manner as a bland southern morning
- Be like the granite of thy rock-ribbed land
- Beauteous she looks as a water-lily
- Beautiful as the dawn, dominant as the sun
- Beauty maddens the soul like wine
- Beheld great Babel, wrathful, beautiful, burn like a blood-red cloud upon the plain
- Beneath a sky as fair as summer flowers
- Bent like a wand of willow
- Black as a foam-swept rock
- Black his hair as the wintry night
- Blithe as a bird
- Bounded by the narrow fences of life
- Bowed like a mountain
- Breaking his oath and resolution like a twist of rotten silk
- Breathed like a sea at rest
- Bright as a diamond in the sun
- Bright as a fallen fragment of the sky
- Bright as the coming forth of the morning, in the cloud of an early shower
- Bright as the sunbeams
- Bright as the tear of an angel, glittered a lonely star
- Brilliant and gay as a Greek
- Brisk as a wasp in the sunshine
- Brittle and bent like a bow
- Bronze-green beetles tumbled over stones, and lay helpless on their backs with the air of an elderly clergyman knocked down by an omnibus
- Brown as the sweet smelling loam
- Brute terrors like the scurrying of rats in a deserted attic
- Buried in his library like a mouse in a cheese
- Burns like a living coal in the soul
- But across it, like a mob's menace, fell the thunder
- But thou art fled, like some frail exhalation
- Butterflies like gems
C - Calm as the night
- Calm like a flowing river
- Calm like a mountain brooding o'er the sea
- Calmly dropping care like a mantle from her shoulders
- Cast thy voice abroad like thunder
- Charm upon charm in her was packed, like rose-leaves in a costly vase
- Chaste as the icicle
- Cheeks as soft as July peaches
- Chill breath of winter
- Choked by the thorns and brambles of early adversity
- Cities scattered over the world like ant-hills
- Cities that rise and sink like bubbles
- Clear and definite like the glance of a child or the voice of a girl
- Clear as a forest pool
- Clear as crystal
- Clenched little hands like rumpled roses, dimpled and dear
- Cloud-like that island hung afar
- Clouds like the petals of a rose
- Cloudy mirror of opinion
- Cold and hard as steel
- Cold as the white rose waking at daybreak
- Cold, glittering monotony like frosting around a cake
- Collapsed like a concertina
- Colored like a fairy tale
- Companionless as the last cloud of an expiring storm whose thunder is its knell
- Consecration that like a golden thread runs through the warp and woof of one's life
- Constant as gliding waters
- Contending like ants for little molehill realms
- Continuous as the stars that shine
- Cowslips, like chance-found gold
- Creeds like robes are laid aside
- Creeping like a snail, unwillingly to school
- Cruel as death
- Curious as a lynx
- Cuts into the matter as with a pen of fire
D - Dainty as flowers
- Dance like a wave of the sea
- Dark and deep as night
- Dark as pitch
- Dark trees bending together as though whispering secrets
- Dazzling white as snow in sunshine
- Deafening and implacable as some elemental force
- Dear as remembered kisses after death
- Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes
- Dearer than night to the thief
- Debasing fancies gather like foul birds
- Deep as the fathomless sea
- Deep dark well of sorrow
- Delicate as nymphs
- Delicate as the flush on a rose or the sculptured line on a Grecian urn
- Denominational lines like stone walls
- Dependency had dropped from her like a cast-off cloak
- Despondency clung to him like a garment that is wet
- Destructive as the lightning flash
- Die like flies
- Dip and surge lightly to and fro, like the red harbor-buoy
- Disappearing into distance like a hazy sea
- Dissatisfaction had settled on his mind like a shadow
- Dissolve like some unsubstantial vision faded
- Do make a music like to rustling satin
- Dogging them like their own shadow
- Dost thou not hear the murmuring nightingale like water bubbling from a silver jar?
- Drop like a feather, softly to the ground
- Drowned like rats
- Dull as champagne
E - Each like a corpse within its grave
- Each moment was an iridescent bubble fresh-blown from the lips of fancy
- Eager-hearted as a boy
- Eager with the headlong zest of a hunter for the game
- Ears that seemed as deaf as dead man s ears
- Easy as a poet's dream
- Emotions flashed across her face like the sweep of sun-rent clouds over a quiet landscape
- Eternal as the skies
- Evanescent as bubbles
- Every flake that fell from heaven was like an angel's kiss
- Every lineament was clear as in the sculptor's thought
- Every one on the watch, like a falcon on its nest
- Every phrase is like the flash of a scimitar
- Exploded like a penny squib
- Eyes as deeply dark as are the desert skies
- Eyes as luminous and bright and brown as waters of a woodland river
- Eyes half veiled by slumberous tears, like bluest water seen through mists of rain
- Eyes like a very dark topaz
- Eyes like deep wells of compassionate gloom
- Eyes like limpid pools in shadow
- Eyes like mountain water that o'erflowing on a rock
F - Faces pale with bliss, like evening stars
- Fade away like a cloud in the horizon
- Faint and distant as the light of a sun that has long set
- Faintly, like a falling dew
- Fair and fleet as a fawn
- Fair as a star when only one is shining in the sky
- Fallen like dead leaves on the highway
- Falling away like a speck in space
- Fanciful and extravagant as a caliph's dream
- Fawning like dumb neglected lap-dogs
- Felt her breath upon his cheek like a perfumed air
- Fields of young grain and verdured pastures like crushed velvet
- Fierce as a bear in defeat
- Fierce as the flames
- Fills life up like a cup with bubbling and sparkling liquor
- Fit closely together as the close-set stones of a building
- Fix'd like a beacon-tower above the waves of a tempest
- Flame like a flag unfurled
- Flap loose and slack like a drooping sail
- Flashed with the brilliancy of a well-cut jewel
- Fled like sweet dreams
- Fleet as an arrow
- Flitted like a sylph on wings
- Flowers as soft as thoughts of budding love
- Fluent as a rill, that wanders silver-footed down a hill
- Fluid as thought
- Fluttered like gilded butterflies in giddy mazes
- Fragile as a spider's web
- Free as the air, from zone to zone I flew
- Free as the winds that caress
- Fresh and unworn as the sea that breaks languidly beside them
- Fresh as a jewel found but yesterday
- Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail
- Frightened like a child in the dark
- Full-throated as the sea
- Furious as eagles
G - Gazed like a star into the morning light
- Glaring like noontide
- Gleam like a diamond on a dancing girl
- Glistening like threads of gold
- Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid
- Glittering like an aigrette of stars
- Gone astray as a sheep that is lost
- Gone like a glow on the cloud at the close of day
- Gone like tenants that quit without warning
- Gorgeous as the hues of heaven
- Grazing through a circulating library as contentedly as cattle in a fresh meadow
- Great scarlet poppies lay in drifts and heaps, like bodies fallen there in vain assault
H - Hair as harsh as tropical grass and gray as ashes
- Hangs like a blue thread loosen'd from the sky
- Hard, sharp, and glittering as a sword
- Harnessed men, like beasts of burden, drew it to the riverside
- Haunts you like the memory of some former happiness
- He began to laugh with that sibilant laugh which resembles the hiss of a serpent
- He bent upon the lightning page like some rapt poet o'er his rhyme
- He bolted down the stairs like a hare
- He clatters like a windmill
- He danced like a man in a swarm of hornets
- He fell as falls some forest lion, fighting well
- He fell down on my threshold like a wounded stag
- He had acted exactly like an automaton
- He lay as straight as a mummy
- He lay like a warrior taking his rest
- He lived as modestly as a hermit
- He looked fagged and sallow, like the day
- He looked with the bland, expressionless stare of an overgrown baby
- He played with grave questions as a cat plays with a mouse
- He radiated vigor and abundance like a happy child
- He sat down quaking like a jelly
- He saw disaster like a ghostly figure following her
- He snatched furiously at breath like a tiger snatching at meat
- He spoke with a uniformity of emphasis that made his words stand out like the raised type for the blind
- He swayed in the sudden grip of anger
- He sweeps the field of battle like a monsoon
- He that wavereth is like a wave of the sea, driven with the wind and tossed
- He turned on me like a thunder-cloud
- He turned white as chalk
- He wandered restlessly through the house, like a prowling animal
- He was as splendidly serious as a reformer
- He was as steady as a clock
- He was as wax in those clever hands
- He was bold as the hawk
- He was so weak now, like a shrunk cedar white with the hoar-frost
- Hearts unfold like flowers before thee
- Heavy was my heart as stone
- Heeled like an avalanche to leeward
- Her arms like slumber o'er my shoulders crept
- Her banners like a thousand sunsets glow
- Her beauty broke on him like some rare flower
- Her beauty fervent as a fiery moon
- Her breath is like a cloud
- Her cheeks are like the blushing cloud
- Her cheeks were wan and her eyes like coals
- Her dusky cheek would burn like a poppy
- Her expression changed with the rapidity of a kaleidoscope
- Her eyes as bright as a blazing star
- Her eyes as stars of twilight fair
- Her eyes, glimmering star-like in her pale face
- Her eyes were as a dove that sickeneth
- Her face changed with each turn of their talk, like a wheat-field under a summer breeze
- Her face collapsed as if it were a pricked balloon
- Her face was as solemn as a mask
- Her face was dull as lead
- Her face was like a light
- Her face was passionless, like those by sculptor graved for niches in a temple
- Her hair dropped on her pallid cheeks, like sea-weed on a clam
- Her hair hung down like summer twilight
- Her hair shone like a nimbus
- Her hair was like a coronet
- Her hands are white as the virgin rose that she wore on her wedding day
- Her hands like moonlight brush the keys
- Her head dropped into her hands like a storm-broken flower
- Her heart has grown icy as a fountain in the fall
- Her holy love that like a vestal flame had burned
- Her impulse came and went like fireflies in the dusk
- Her lashes like fans upon her cheek
- Her laugh is like a rainbow-tinted spray
- Her lips are like two budded roses
- Her lips like a lovely song that ripples as it flows
- Her lips like twilight water
- Her little lips are tremulous as brook-water is
- Her long black hair danced round her like a snake
- Her mouth as sweet as a ripe fig
- Her neck is like a stately tower
- Her pale robe clinging to the grass seemed like a snake
- Her pulses flutter'd like a dove
- Her skin was as the bark of birches
- Her sweetness halting like a tardy May
- Her two white hands like swans on a frozen lake
- Her voice cut like a knife
- Her voice like mournful bells crying on the wind
- Her voice was like the voice the stars had when they sang together
- Her voice was rich and vibrant, like the middle notes of a 'cello
- Her words sounding like wavelets on a summer shore
- Herding his thoughts as a collie dog herds sheep
- Here and there a solitary volume greeted him like a friend in a crowd of strange faces
- Here in statue-like repose, an old wrinkled mountain rose
- Hers was the loveliness of some tall white lily cut in marble, splendid but chill
- His bashfulness melted like a spring frost
- His brow bent like a cliff o'er his thoughts
- His cheeks were furrowed and writhen like rain-washed crags
- His eyes blazed like deep forests
- His eyes glowed like blue coals
- His eyes were hollows of madness, his hair like moldy hay
- His face burnt like a brand
- His face was glad as dawn to me
- His face was often lit up by a smile like pale wintry sunshine
- His fingers were knotted like a cord
- His formal kiss fell chill as a flake of snow on the cheek
- His fortune melted away like snow in a thaw
- His glorious moments were strung like pearls upon a string
- His indifference fell from him like a garment
- His invectives and vituperations bite and flay like steel whips
- His mind murmurs like a harp among the trees
- His mind was like a lonely wild
- His mind was like a summer sky
- His nerves thrilled like throbbing violins
- His retort was like a knife-cut across the sinews
- His revenge descends perfect, sudden, like a curse from heaven
- His spirits sank like a stone
- His talk is like an incessant play of fireworks
- His voice is as the thin faint song when the wind wearily sighs in the grass
- His voice rose like a stream of rich distilled perfumes
- His voice was like the clap of thunder which interrupts the warbling birds among the leaves
- His whole soul wavered and shook like a wind-swept leaf
- His words gave a curious satisfaction, as when a coin, tested, rings true gold
- Hopeful as the break of day
- How like a saint she sleeps
- How like a winter hath my absence been
- How like the sky she bends over her child
- Howling in the wilderness like beasts
- Huge as a hippopotamus
- Humming-birds like lake of purple fire
- Hushed as the grave
- Hushed like a breathless lyre
I - I had grown pure as the dawn and the dew I have heard the Hidden People like the hum of swarming bees
- I have seen the ravens flying, like banners of old wars
- I saw a face bloom like a flower
- I saw a river of men marching like a tide
- I saw his senses swim dizzy as clouds
- I wander'd lonely as a cloud
- I was as sensitive as a barometer
- I was no more than a straw on the torrent of his will
- I will face thy wrath though it bite as a sword
- Ideas which spread with the speed of light
- Idle hopes, like empty shadows
- Impassive as a statue
- Impatient as the wind
- Impregnable as Gibraltar
- Impressive as a warrant of arrest for high treason
- Incredible little white teeth, like snow shut in a rose
- Infrequent carriages sped like mechanical toys guided by manikins
- In honor spotless as unfallen snow
- In that head of his a flame burnt that was like an altar-fire
- In yonder cottage shines a light, far-gleaming like a gem
- Instantly she revived like flowers in water
- Intangible as a dream
- It came and faded like a wreath of mist at eve
- It cuts like knives, this air so chill
- It drops away like water from a smooth statue
- It pealed through her brain like a muffled bell
- It poured upon her like a trembling flood
- It racked his ears like an explosion of steam-whistles
- It ran as clear as a trout-brook
- It seems as motionless and still as the zenith in the skies
- It set his memories humming like a hive of bees
- It staggered the eye, like the sight of water running up hill
- It stung like a frozen lash
- It was as futile as to oppose an earthquake with argument
- It was as if a door had been opened into a furnace, so the eyes blazed
- It would collapse as if by enchantment
- Its temples and its palaces did seem like fabrics of enchantment piled to Heaven
J - Jealousy, fierce as the fires
K - Kindle like an angel's wings the western skies in flame
- Kindly mornings when autumn and winter seemed to go hand in hand like a happy aged couple
- Kingdoms melt away like snow
L - Laboring like a giant
- Languid streams that cross softly, slowly, with a sound like smothered weeping
- Laughter like a beautiful bubble from the rosebud of babyhood
- Laughter like the sudden outburst of the glad bird in the tree-top
- Lazy merchantmen that crawled like flies over the blue enamel of the sea
- Leapt like a hunted stag
- Let his frolic fancy play, like a happy child
- Let in confusion like a whirling flood
- Let thy mouth murmur like the doves
- Life had been arrested, as the horologist, with interjected finger, arrests the beating of the clock
- Life stretched before him alluring and various as the open road
- Life sweet as perfume and pure as prayer
- Light as a snowflake
- Lights gleamed there like stars in a still sky
- Like a ball of ice it glittered in a frozen sea of sky
- Like a blade sent home to its scabbard
- Like a blast from a horn
- Like a blast from the suddenly opened door of a furnace
- Like a blossom blown before a breeze, a white moon drifts before a shimmering sky
- Like a bright window in a distant view
- Like a caged lion shaking the bars of his prison
- Like a calm flock of silver-fleeced sheep
- Like a cloud of fire
- Like a cold wind his words went through their flesh
- Like a crowd of frightened porpoises a shoal of sharks pursue
- Like a damp-handed auctioneer
- Like a deaf and dumb man wondering what it was all about
- Like a dew-drop, ill-fitted to sustain unkindly shocks
- Like a dipping swallow the stout ship dashed through the storm
- Like a distant star glimmering steadily in the darkness
- Like a dream she vanished
- Like a festooned girdle encircling the waist of a bride
- Like a flower her red lips parted
- Like a game in which the important part is to keep from laughing
- Like a glow-worm golden
- Like a golden-shielded army
- Like a great express train, roaring, flashing, dashing headlong
- Like a great fragment of the dawn it lay
- Like a great ring of pure and endless light
- Like a great tune to which the planets roll
- Like a high and radiant ocean
- Like a high-born maiden
- Like a jewel every cottage casement showed
- Like a joyless eye that finds no object worth its constancy
- Like a knight worn out by conflict
- Like a knot of daisies lay the hamlets on the hill
- Like a lily in bloom
- Like a living meteor
- Like a locomotive-engine with unsound lungs
- Like a long arrow through the dark the train is darting
- Like a mirage, vague, dimly seen at first
- Like a miser who spoils his coat with scanting a little cloth
- Like a mist the music drifted from the silvery strings
- Like a moral lighthouse in the midst of a dark and troubled sea
- Like a murmur of the wind came a gentle sound of stillness
- Like a noisy argument in a drawing-room
- Like a pageant of the Golden Year, in rich memorial pomp the hours go by
- Like a pale flower by some sad maiden cherished
- Like a poet hidden
- Like a river of molten amethyst
- Like a rocket discharging a shower of golden stars
- Like a rose embower'd in its own green leaves
- Like a sea of upturned faces
- Like a shadow never to be overtaken
- Like a shadow on a fair sunlit landscape
- Like a sheeted ghost
- Like a ship tossed to and fro on the waves of life's sea
- Like a slim bronze statue of Despair
- Like a snow-flake lost in the ocean
- Like a soul that wavers in the Valley of the Shadow
- Like a stalled horse that breaks loose and goes at a gallop through the plain
- Like a star, his love's pure face looked down
- Like a star that dwelt apart
- Like a star, unhasting, unresting
- Like a stone thrown at random
- Like a summer cloud, youth indeed has crept away
- Like a summer-dried fountain
- Like a swift eagle in the morning glare breasting the whirlwind with impetuous flight
- Like a thing at rest
- Like a thing read in a book or remembered out of the faraway past
- Like a tide of triumph through their veins, the red, rejoicing blood began to race
- Like a triumphing fire the news was borne
- Like a troop of boys let loose from school, the adventurers went by
- Like a vaporous amethyst
- Like a vision of the morning air
- Like a voice from the unknown regions
- Like a wandering star I fell through the deeps of desire
- Like a watch-worn and weary sentinel
- Like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed
- Like a whirlwind they went past
- Like a withered leaf the moon is blown across the bay
- Like a world of sunshine
- Like a yellow silken scarf the thick fog hangs
- Like an alien ghost I stole away
- Like an eagle clutching his prey, his arm swooped down
- Like an eagle dallying with the wind
- Like an engine of dread war, he set his shoulder to the mountain-side
- Like an enraged tiger
- Like an enthusiast leading about with him an indifferent tourist
- Like an icy wave, a swift and tragic impression swept through him
- Like an unbidden guest
- Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun
- Like an unseen star of birth
- Like an unwelcome thought
- Like apparitions seen and gone
- Like attempting to number the waves on the shore of a limitless sea
- Like bells that waste the moments with their loudness
- Like blasts of trumpets blown in wars
- Like bright Apollo
- Like bright lamps, the fabled apples glow
- Like building castles in the air
- Like bursting waves from the ocean
- Like cliffs which have been rent asunder
- Like clouds of gnats with perfect lineaments
- Like cobwebs woven round the limbs of an infant giant
- Like crystals of snow
- Like dead lovers who died true
- Like Death, who rides upon a thought, and makes his way through temple, tower, and palace
- Like dew upon a sleeping flower
- Like dining with a ghost
- Like drawing nectar in a sieve
- Like earth's decaying leaves
- Like echoes from a hidden lyre
- Like echoes from an antenatal dream
- Like fixed eyes, whence the dear light of sense and thought has fled
- Like footsteps upon wool
- Like fragrance from dead flowers
- Like ghosts, from an enchanter fleeing
- Like ghosts the sentries come and go
- Like golden boats on a sunny sea
- Like great black birds, the demons haunt the woods
- Like green waves on the sea
- Like having to taste a hundred exquisite dishes in a single meal
- Like Heaven's free breath, which he who grasps can hold not
- Like helpless birds in the warm nest
- Like iridescent bubbles floating on a foul stream
- Like kindred drops mingled into one
- Like laying a burden on the back of a moth
- Like lead his feet were
- like leaves in wintry weather
- Like leviathans afloat
- Like lighting a candle to the sun
- Like making a mountain out of a mole-hill
- Like mariners pulling the life-boat
- Like mice that steal in and out as if they feared the light
- Like mountain over mountain huddled
- Like mountain streams we meet and part
- Like music on the water
- Like notes which die when born, but still haunt the echoes of the hill
- Like oceans of liquid silver
- Like one pale star against the dusk, a single diamond on her brow gleamed with imprisoned fire
- Like one who halts with tired wings
- Like one who talks of what he loves in dream
- Like organ music came the deep reply
- Like pageantry of mist on an autumnal stream
- Like phantoms gathered by the sick imagination
- Like planets in the sky
- Like pouring oil on troubled waters
- Like roses that in deserts bloom and die
- Like rowing upstream against a strong downward current
- Like scents from a twilight garden
- Like separated souls
- Like serpents struggling in a vulture's grasp
- Like sheep from out the fold of the sky, stars leapt
- like ships that have gone down at sea
- Like shy elves hiding from the traveler's eye
- Like skeletons, the sycamores uplift their wasted hands
- Like some grave night thought threading a dream
- Like some new-gathered snowy hyacinth, so white and cold and delicate it was
- Like some poor nigh-related guest, that may not rudely be dismist
- Like some suppressed and hideous thought which flits athwart our musings, but can find no rest within a pure and gentle mind
- Like some unshriven churchyard thing, the friar crawled
- Like something fashioned in a dream
- Like sounds of wind and flood
- Like splendor-winged moths about a taper
- Like stepping out on summer evenings from the glaring ball-room upon the cool and still piazza
- Like straws in a gust of wind
- Like summer's beam and summer's stream
- Like sunlight, in and out the leaves, the robins went
- Like sweet thoughts in a dream
- Like the awful shadow of some unseen power
- Like the bellowing of bulls
- Like the boar encircled by hunters and hounds
- Like the bubbles on a river sparkling, bursting, borne away
- Like the cold breath of the grave
- Like the creaking of doors held stealthily ajar
- Like the cry of an itinerant vendor in a quiet and picturesque town
- Like the dance of some gay sunbeam
- Like the dawn of the morn
- Like the detestable and spidery araucaria
- Like the dew on the mountain
- Like the dim scent in violets
- Like the drifting foam of a restless sea when the waves show their teeth in the flying breeze
- Like the embodiment of a perfect rose, complete in form and fragrance
- Like the faint cry of unassisted woe
- Like the faint exquisite music of a dream
- Like the fair flower dishevel'd in the wind
- Like the fair sun, when in his fresh array he cheers the morn, and all the earth revealeth
- Like the falling thud of the blade of a murderous ax
- Like the fierce fiend of a distempered dream
- Like the fitting of an old glove to a hand
- Like the foam on the river
- Like the great thunder sounding
- Like the jangling of all the strings of some musical instrument
- Like the jewels that gleam in baby eyes
- Like the kiss of maiden love the breeze is sweet and bland
- Like the long wandering love, the weary heart may faint for rest
- Like the moon in water seen by night
- Like the music in the patter of small feet
- Like the prodigal whom wealth softens into imbecility
- Like the quivering image of a landscape in a flowing stream
- Like the rainbow, thou didst fade
- Like the rustling of grain moved by the west-wind
- Like the sap that turns to nectar, in the velvet of the peach
- Like the sea whose waves are set in motion by the winds
- Like the sea-worm, that perforates the shell of the mussel, which straightway closes the wound with a pearl
- Like the setting of a tropical sun
- Like the shadow of a great hill that reaches far out over the plain
- Like the shadows of the stars in the upheaved sea
- Like the shudder of a doomed soul
- Like the silver gleam when the poplar trees rustle their pale leaves listlessly
- Like the soft light of an autumnal day
- Like the Spring-time, fresh and green
- Like the stern-lights of a ship at sea, illuminating only the path which has been passed over
- Like the sudden impulse of a madman
- Like the swell of Summer's ocean
- Like the tattered effigy in a cornfield
- Like the vase in which roses have once been distill'd
- Like the visits of angels, short and far between
- Like the whole sky when to the east the morning doth return
- Like thistles of the wilderness, fit neither for food nor fuel
- Like those great rivers, whose course every one beholds, but their springs have been seen by but few
- Like thoughts whose very sweetness yielded proof that they were born for immortality
- Like to diamonds her white teeth shone between the parted lips
- Like torrents from a mountain source, we rushed into each other's arms
- Like troops of ghosts on the dry wind past
- Like two doves with silvery wings, let our souls fly
- Like two flaming stars were his eyes
- Like vaporous shapes half seen
- Like village curs that bark when their fellows do
- Like wasted hours of youth
- Like winds that bear sweet music, when they breathe through some dim latticed chamber
- Like wine-stain to a flask the old distrust still clings
- Like winged stars the fire-flies flash and glance
- Like young lovers whom youth and love make dear
- Lingering like an unloved guest
- Lithe as a panther
- Little white hands like pearls
- Lofty as a queen
- Loneliness struck him like a blow
- Looked back with faithful eyes like a great mastiff to his master's face
- Looking as sulky as the weather itself
- Looking like a snarling beast baulked of its prey
- Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed
- Lost like the lightning in the sullen clod
- Love as clean as starlight
- Love brilliant as the morning
- Love had like the canker-worm consumed her early prime
- Love is a changing lord as the light on a turning sword
- Love like a child around the world doth run
- Love like a miser in the dark his joys would hide
- Love shakes like a windy reed your heart
- Love smiled like an unclouded sun
- Love that sings and has wings as a bird
- Lovely as starry water
- Lovely the land unknown and like a river flowing
M - March on my soul nor like the laggard stay
- Me on whose heart as a worm she trod
- Meaningless as the syllables of an unknown tongue
- Men moved hither and thither like insects in their crevices
- Mentality as hard as bronze
- Mentally round-shouldered and decrepit
- Merge imperceptibly into one another like the hues of the prism
- Meteors that dart like screaming birds
- Milk-white pavements, clear and richly pale, like alabaster
- More variegated than the skin of a serpent
- Motion like the spirit of that wind whose soft sten deepens slumber
- Motionless as a plumb line
- Mountains like frozen wrinkles on a sea
- Moving in the same dull round, like blind horses in a mill
- Mute as an iceberg
- My age is as a lusty Winter
- My body broken as a turning wheel
- My breath to Heaven like vapor goes
- My head was like a great bronze bell with one thought for the clapper
- My heart is as some famine-murdered land
- My heart is like a full sponge and must weep a little
- My heart like a bird doth hover
- My heart will be as wind fainting in hot grass
- My life floweth away like a river
- My life was white as driven snow
- My love for thee is like the sovereign moon that rules the sea
- My love's like the steadfast sun
- My lungs began to crow like chanticleer
- My mind swayed idly like a water-lily in a lake
- My muscles are as steel
- My skin is as sallow as gold
- My soul was as a lampless sea
- My spirit seemed to beat the void, like the bird from out the ark
- My thoughts came yapping and growling round me like a pack of curs
- My thoughts ran leaping through the green ways of my mind like fawns at play
N - Night falls like fire
- No longer shall slander's venomed spite crawl like a snake across his perfect name
- Now every nerve in my body seemed like a strained harp-string ready to snap at a touch
- Now like a wild nymph she veils her shadowy form
- Now like a wild rose in the fields of heaven slipt forth the slender figure of the Dawn
- Now memory and emotion surged in my soul like a tempest
- Now thou seemest like a bankrupt beau, stripped of his gaudy hues
O - Obscured with wrath as is the sun with cloud
- Odorous as all Arabia
- Often enough life tosses like a fretful stream among rocky boulders
- Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud
- Old as the evening star
- Old happy hours that have long folded their wings
- Once again, like madness, the black shapes of doubt swing through his brain
- One bleared star, faint glimmering like a bee
- One bright drop is like the gem that decks a monarch's crown
- One by one flitting like a mournful bird
- One deep roar as of a cloven world
- One winged cloud above like a spread dragon overhangs the west
- Oppressed by the indefiniteness which hung in her mind, like a thick summer haze
- Or shedding radiance like the smiles of God
- Our enemies were broken like a dam of river reeds
- Our hearts bowed down like violets after rain
- Our sail like a dew-lit blossom shone
- Overhead the intense blue of the noonday sky burst like a jewel in the sun
P - Pale and grave as a sculptured nun
- Pale as a drifting blossom
- Passed like a phantom into the shadows
- Passive and tractable as a child
- Peaceful as a village cricket-green on Sunday
- Peevish and impatient, like some ill-trained man who is sick
- Perished utterly, like a blown-out flame
- Philosophy evolved itself, like a vast spider's loom
- Pillowed upon its alabaster arms like to a child o'erwearied with sweet toil
- Polished as the bosom of a star
- Poured his heart out like the rending sea in passionate wave on wave
- Pouting like the snowy buds o' roses in July
- Presently she hovered like a fluttering leaf or flake of snow
- Pride and self-disgust served her like first-aid surgeons on the battlefield
- Proud as the proudest of church dignitaries
- Pure as a wild-flower
- Pure as the azure above them
- Pure as the naked heavens
- Pure as the snowy leaves that fold over the flower's heart
- Purple, crimson, and scarlet, like the curtains of God's tabernacle
- Put on gravity like a robe
Q - Quaking and quivering like a short-haired puppy after a ducking
- Questions and answers sounding like a continuous popping of corks
- Quiet as a nun's face
- Quietly as a cloud he stole
- Quietude which seemed to him beautiful as clear depths of water
- Quivering like an eager race-horse to start
R - Rage, rage ye tears, that never more should creep like hounds about God's footstool
- Ran like a young fawn
- Rattle in the ear like a flourish of trumpets
- Rays springing from the east like golden arrows
- Red as the print of a kiss might be
- Redolent with the homely scent of old-fashioned herbs and flowers
- Reflected each in the other like stars in a lake
- Refreshed like dusty grass after a shower
- Refreshing as descending rains to sunburnt climes
- Remote as the hidden star
- Restless as a blue-bottle fly on a warm summer's day
- Revealed his doings like those of bees in a glass hive
- Rich as the dawn
- Ride like the wind through the night
- Rivers that like silver threads ran through the green and gold of pasture lands
- Roared like mountain torrents
- Rolling it under the tongue as a sweet morsel
- Round my chair the children run like little things of dancing gold
- Ruddy as sunrise
- Ruddy his face as the morning light
- Ruffling out his cravat with a crackle of starch, like a turkey when it spreads its feathers
- Running to and fro like frightened sheep
- Rushing and hurrying about like a June-bug
S - Sanctuaries where the passions may, like wild falcons, cover their faces with their wings
- Sayings that stir the blood like the sound of a trumpet
- Scattered love as stars do light
- Sea-gulls flying like flakes of the sea
- Sentences level and straight like a hurled lance
- Shadowy faces, known in dream, pass as petals upon a stream
- Shake like an aspen leaf
- Shaken off like a nightmare
- Shapeless as a sack of wool
- Shattered like so much glass
- She brightened like a child whose broken toy is glued together
- She could summon tears as one summons servants
- She danced like a flower in the wind
- She disclaimed the weariness that dragged upon her spirits like leaden weights
- She exuded a faint and intoxicating perfume of womanliness, like a crushed herb
- She felt like an unrepentant criminal
- She fled like a spirit from the room
- She flounders like a huge conger-eel in an ocean of dingy morality
- She gave him a surprised look, like a child catching an older person in a foolish statement
- She gave off antipathies as a liquid gives off vapor
- She has great eyes like the doe
- She heard him like one in a dream
- She let the soft waves of her deep hair fall like flowers from Paradise
- She looked like a tall golden candle
- She looked like the picture of a young rapt saint, lost in heavenly musing
- She moved like mirth incarnate
- She nestles like a dove
- She played with a hundred possibilities fitfully and discursively as a musician runs his fingers over a key-board
- She played with grave cabinets as a cat plays with a mouse
- She saw this planet like a star hung in the glistening depths of even
- She seemed as happy as a wave that dances on the sea
- She shall be sportive as the fawn
- She stood silent a moment, dropping before him like a broken branch
- She that passed had lips like pinks
- She walked like a galley-slave
- She walks in beauty like the night
- She was as brilliant, and as hard too, as electric light
- She was silent, standing before him like a little statuesque figure
- Shining like the dewy star of dawn
- Shivering pine-trees, like phantoms
- Showy as damask-rose and shy as musk
- Shrill as the loon's call
- Shrivel like paper thrust into a flame
- Shy as the squirrel
- Sights seen as a traveling swallow might see them on the wing
- Silence deep as death
- Silence now is brooding like a gentle spirit o'er the still and pulseless world
- Silence that seemed heavy and dark, like a passing cloud
- Sinks clamorous like mill-waters at wild play
- Sits like the maniac on his fancied throne
- Skies as clear as babies' eyes
- Sleek and thick and yellow as gold
- Slender and thin as a slender wire
- Slowly as a tortoise
- Slowly as the finger of a clock, her shadow came
- Slowly moved off and disappeared like shapes breathed on a mirror and melting away
- Slowly, unnoted, like the creeping rust that spreads insidious, had estrangement come
- Small as a grain of mustard seed
- Smooth as a pond
- Smooth as the pillar flashing in the sun
- Snug as a bug in a rug
- Soaring as swift as smoke from a volcano springs
- So elusive that the memory of it afterwards was wont to come and go like a flash of light
- So my spirit beat itself like a caged bird against its prison bars in vain
- Soft as a zephyr
- Soft as sleep the snow fell
- Soft as Spring
- Soft as the down of the turtle dove
- Soft as the landscape of a dream
- Soft as the south-wind
- Soft in their color as gray pearls
- Soft vibrations of verbal melody, like the sound of a golden bell rung far down under the humming waters
- Some gleams of feeling pure and warm as sunshine on a sky of storm
- Some like veiled ghosts hurrying past as though driven to their land of shadows by shuddering fear
- Some minds are like an open fire – how direct and instant our communication with them
- Something divine seemed to cling around her like some subtle vapor
- Something resistant and inert, like the obstinate rolling over of a heavy sleeper after he has been called to get up
- Something sharp and brilliant, like the glitter of a sword or a forked flash of lightning
- Sorrowful eyes like those of wearied kine spent from the plowing
- Spread like wildfire
- Squirrel-in-the-cage kind of movement
- Stamping like a plowman to shuffle off the snow
- Stared about like calves in a pen
- Steadfast as the soul of truth
- Steals lingering like a river smooth
- Still as death
- Stood like a wave-beaten rock
- Straight as a ray of light
- Straight as an arrow
- Streamed like a meteor through the troubled air
- Streamed o'er his memory like a forest flame
- Streaming tears, like pearl drops from a flint
- Striking with the force of an engine of destruction
- Strong as a bison
- Style comes, if at all, like the bloom upon fruit, or the glow of health upon the cheek
- Subtle as jealousy
- Sudden a thought came like a full-blown rose, flushing his brow
- Sudden sprays of rain, like volleys of sharp arrows, rattled gustily against the windows
- Suddenly, like death, the truth flashed on them
- Sunbeams flashing on the face of things like sudden smilings of divine delight
- Sunday mornings which seem to put on, like a Sabbath garment, an atmosphere of divine quietude
- Supple and sweet as a rose in bloom
- Sway like blown moths against the rosewhite flame
- Sweet as a summer night without a breath
- Sweet as music she spoke
- Sweet as the rain at noon
- Sweet as the smile of a fairy
- Swift as a swallow heading south
- Swift as lightning
- Swift as the panther in triumph
- Swifter than the twinkling of an eye
T - Talking and thinking became to him like the open page of a monthly magazine
- Tall lance-like reeds wave sadly o'er his head
- That like a wounded snake drags its slow length along
- The anemone that weeps at day-break, like a silly girl before her lover
- The army blazed and glowed in the golden sunlight like a mosaic of a hundred thousand jewels
- The army like a witch's caldron seethed
- The beating of her heart was like a drum
- The beauty of her quiet life was like a rose in blowing
- The billows burst like cannon down the coast
- The birds swam the flood of air like tiny ships
- The boat cuts its swift way through little waves like molten gold and opal
- The boom of the surf grew ever less sonorous, like the thunder of a retreating storm
- The breast-plate of righteousness
- The breathless hours like phantoms stole away
- The breeze is as a pleasant tune
- The calm white brow as calm as earliest morn
- The camp fire reddens like angry skies
- The chambers of the house were haunted by an incessant echoing, like some dripping cavern
- The church swarmed like a hive
- The city is all in a turmoil; it boils like a pot of lentils
- The clouds that move like spirits o'er the welkin clear
- The clustered apples burnt like flame
- The colored bulbs swung noon-like from tree and shrub
- The crimson close of day
- The curl'd moon was like a little feather
- The curling wreaths like turbans seem
- The dark hours are swept away like crumbling ashes
- The dark mass of her hair shook round her like a sea
- The dawn is rising from the sea, like a white lady from her
- The dawn had whitened in the mist like a dead face bed
- The dawn with silver-sandaled feet crept like a frightened girl.
- The day stunned me like light upon some wizard way
- The day was sweeter than honey and the honey-comb
- The days have trampled me like armed men
- The dead past flew away over the fens like a flight of wild swans
- The deep like one black maelstrom round her whirls
- The deepening east like a scarlet poppy burnt
- The desolate rocky hills rolled like a solid wave along the horizon
- The dome of heaven is like one drop of dew
- The dreams of poets come like music heard at evening from the depth of some enchanted forest
- The eagerness faded from his eyes, leaving them cold as a winter sky after sunset
- The earth was like a frying-pan, or some such hissing matter
- The eternal sea, which like a childless mother, still must croon her ancient sorrows to the cold white moon
- The evening sky was as green as jade
- The excitement had spread through the whole house, like a piquant and agreeable odor
- The excitement of the thought buoyed his high-strung temperament like a tonic
- The feathery meadows like a lilac sea
- The firm body like a slope of snow
- The first whiff of reality dissipated them like smoke
- The floor, newly waxed, gleamed in the candle-light like beaten moonbeams
- The fragrant clouds of hair, they flowed round him like a snare
- The gathering glory of life shone like the dawn
- The gesture was all strength and will, like the stretching of a sea-bird's wings
- The girl's voice rang like a bird-call through his rustling fancies
- The glimmer of tall flowers standing like pensive moon-worshipers in an ecstasy of prayerless bloom
- The guides sniffed, like chamois, the air
- The heavens are like a scroll unfurled
- The hills across the valley were purple as thunder-clouds
- The hoofs of the horses rang like the dumb cadence of an old saga
- The hours crawled by like years
- The hum of the camp sounds like the sea
- The hurrying crowds of men gather like clouds
- The ideas succeeded each other like a dynasty of kings
- The impalpable presence of the new century rose like a vast empty house through which no human feet had walked
- The inexorable facts closed in on him like prison-warders hand-cuffing a convict
- The lake glimmered as still as a mirror
- The land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell
- The land was like a dream
- The level boughs, like bars of iron across the setting sun
- The light of London flaring like a dreary dawn
- The lights blazed up like day
- The lilies were drooping, white, and wan, like the head and skin of a dying man
- The mellowing hand of time
- The melody rose tenderly and lingeringly like a haunting perfume of pressed flowers
- The Milky Way lay like diamond-dust upon the robe of some great king
- The monk's face whitened like sea-foam
- The moon drowsed between the trees like a great yellow moth
- The moon on the tower slept soft as snow
- The moonbeams rest like a pale spotless shroud
- The moonlight lay like snow
- The moonlight, like a fairy mist, upon the mesa spreads
- The mortal coldness of the soul, like death itself comes down
- The mountain shadows mingling, lay like pools above the earth
- The mountains loomed up dimly, like phantoms through the mist
- The music almost died away, then it burst like a pent-up flood
- The name that cuts into my soul like a knife
- The nervous little train winding its way like a jointed reptile
- The new ferns were spread upon the earth like some lacy coverlet
- The night like a battle-broken host is driven before
- The night yawned like a foul wind
- The ocean swelled like an undulating mirror of the bowl of heaven
- The old books look somewhat pathetically from the shelves, like aged dogs wondering why no one takes them for a walk
- The old infamy will pop into daylight like a toad out of a fissure in the rock
- The penalty falls like a thunderbolt from heaven
- The phrase was like a spear-thrust
- The pine trees waved as waves a woman's hair
- The place was like some enchanted town of palaces
- The plains to northward change their color like the shimmering necks of doves
- The poppy burned like a crimson ember
- The prime of man has waxed like cedars
- The public press would chatter and make odd ambiguous sounds like a shipload of monkeys in a storm
- The purple heather rolls like dumb thunder
- The rainbows flashed like fire
- The river shouted as ever its cry of joy over the vitality of life, like a spirited boy before the face of inscrutable nature
- The roofs with their gables like hoods
- The roses lie upon the grass like little shreds of crimson silk
- The satire of the word cut like a knife
- The scullion with face shining like his pans
- The sea reeled round like a wine-vat splashing
- The sea-song of the trampling waves is as muffled bells
- The sea spread out like a wrinkled marble floor
- The sea, that gleamed still, like a myriad-petaled rose
- The sea was as untroubled as the turquoise vault which it reflected
- The setting of the sun is like a word of peace
- The sharp hail rattles against the panes and melts on my cheeks like tears
- The ships, like sheeted phantoms coming and going
- The silence seemed to crush to earth like a great looking-glass and shiver into a million pieces
- The silvery morning like a tranquil vision fills the world
- The sky burned like a heated opal
- The sky gleamed with the hardness and brilliancy of blue enamel
- The sky was as a shield that caught the stain of blood and battle from the dying sun
- The sky was clear and blue, and the air as soft as milk
- The sky was like a peach
- The sky where stars like lilies white and fair shine through the mists
- The solid air around me there heaved like a roaring ocean
- The solid mountains gleamed like the unsteady sea
- The soul is like a well of water springing up into everlasting life
- The sound is like a noon-day gale
- The sound is like a silver-fountain that springeth in a golden basin
- The sound of a thousand tears, like softly pattering wings
- The sound of your running feet that like the sea-hoofs beat
- The spear-tongued lightning slipped like a snake
- The Spring breaks like a bird
- The stacks of corn in brown array, like tattered wigwams on the plain
- The stars come down and trembling glow like blossoms on the waves below
- The stars lay on the lapis-lazuli sky like white flower-petals on still deep water
- The stars pale and silent as a seer
- The strange cold sense of aloofness that had numbed her senses suddenly gave way like snow melting in the spring
- The sudden thought of your face is like a wound when it comes unsought
- The sun, like a great dragon, writhes in gold
- The sun on the sea-wave lies white as the moon
- The surf was like the advancing lines of an unknown enemy flinging itself upon the shore
- The terrible past lay afar, like a dream left behind in the night
- The tide was in the salt-weed, and like a knife it tore
- The time, gliding like a dream
- The torrent from the hills leaped down their rocky stairways like wild steeds
- The tree whose pluméd boughs are soft as wings of birds
- The uproar and contention pierced him like arrows
- The veiled future bowed before me like a vision of promise
- The velvet grass that is like padding to earth's meager ribs
- The villa dips its foot in the lake, smiling at its reflection like a bather lingering on the brink
- The voice of Fate, crying like some old Bellman through the world
- The voice that rang in the night like a bugle call
- The warm kindling blood burned her cheeks like the breath of a hot wind
- The waves were rolling in, long and lazy, like sea-worn travelers
- The whole truth, naked, cold, and fatal as a patriot's blade
- The wind all round their ears hissed like a flight of white-winged geese
- The wind comes and it draws its length along like the genii from the earthen pot
- The wine flows like blood
- The woman seemed like a thing of stone
- The words kept ringing in my ears like the tolling of a bell
- The words of the wise fall like the tolling of sweet, grave bells upon the soul
- The world had vanished like a phantasmagoria
- The world is bitter as a tear
- The world is in a simmer, like a sea
- The world wavers within its circle like a dream
- The years stretched before her like some vast blank page out to receive the record of her toil
- The years vanished like a May snowdrift
- The yellow apples glowed like fire
- Their glances met like crossed swords
- Their joy like sunshine deep and broad falls on my heart
- Their minds rested upon the thought, as chasing butterflies might rest together on a flower
- Their music frightful as the serpent's hiss
- Their touch affrights me as a serpent's sting
- Then fall unheeded like the faded flower
- Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
- Then it swelled out to rich and glorious harmonies like a full orchestra playing under the sea
- Then the lover sighing like furnace
- Theories sprouted in his mind like mushrooms
- There is an air about you like the air that folds a star
- There, like a bird, it sits and sings
- There seemed to brood in the air a quiet benevolence of a Father watching His myriad children at play
- There she soars like a seraph
- There she stood straight as a lily on its stem
- There slowly rose to sight, a country like a dragon fast asleep
- There streamed into the air the sweet smell of crushed grass, as though many fields had been pressed between giant's fingers and so had been left
- These eyes like stars have led me
- These final words snapped like a whip-lash
- These thoughts pierced me like thorns
- They are as cruel as creeping tigers
- They are as white foam on the swept sands
- They are as white swans in the dusk, thy white hands
- They are painted sharp as death
- They broke into pieces and fell on the ground, like a silvery, shimmering shower of hail
- They dropped like panthers
- They fly like spray
- They had hands like claws
- They had slipped away like visions
- They have as many principles as a fish has bones
- They have faces like flowers
- They hurried down like plovers that have heard the call
- They look like rose-buds filled with snow
- They seem like swarming flies, the crowd of little men
- They seemed like floating flowers
- They shine as sweet as simple doves
- They stand like solitary mountain forms on some hard, perfectly transparent day
- They vanished like the shapes that float upon a summer s dream
- Thick as wind-blown leaves innumerable
- Thickly the flakes drive past, each like a childish ghost
- Thine eyes like two twin stars shining
- This life is like a bubble blown up in the air
- This love that dwells like moonlight in your face
- This thought is as death
- This tower rose in the sunset like a prayer
- Those ancestral themes past which so many generations have slept like sea-going winds over pastures
- Those death-like eyes, unconscious of the sun
- Those eyelids folded like a white rose-leaf
- Those eyes like bridal beacons shine
- Thou art to me but as a wave of the wild sea
- Thou as heaven art fair and young
- Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea
- Thou must wither like a rose
- Thou shalt be as free as mountain winds
- Thou wouldst weep tears bitter as blood
- Though bright as silver the meridian beams shine
- Though thou be black as night
- Thoughts vague as the fitful breeze
- Three-cornered notes fly about like butterflies
- Through the forest, like a fairy dream through some dark mind, the ferns in branching beauty stream
- Through the moonlit trees, like ghosts of sounds haunting the moonlight, stole the faint tinkle of a guitar
- Through the riot of his senses, like a silver blaze, ran the legend
- Thy beauty like a beast it bites
- Thy brown benignant eyes have sudden gleams of gladness and surprise, like woodland brooks that cross a sunlit spot
- Thy carven columns must have grown by magic, like a dream in stone
- Thy favors are but like the wind that kisses everything it meets
- Thy heart is light as a leaf of a tree
- Thy name burns like a gray and flickering candle flame
- Thy name will be as honey on men's lips
- Till death like sleep might steal on me
- Till he melted like a cloud in the silent summer heaven
- Time drops in decay, like a candle burnt out
- Time like a pulse shakes fierce
- To drag life on, which like a heavy chain lengthens behind with many a link of pain
- To forsake as the trees drop their leaves in autumn
- Toys with smooth trifles like a child at play
- Transitory as clouds without substance
- Transparent like a shining sun
- Tree and shrub altered their values and became transmuted to silver sentinels
- Trees that spread their forked boughs like a stag's antlers
- Trembling like an aspen-leaf
- Truths which forever shine as fixed stars
- Turning easily and securely as on a perfect axle
U - Unbends like a loosened bow
- Unbreakable as iron
- Unconscious as an oak-tree of its growth
- Under the willow-tree glimmered her face like a foam-flake drifting over the sea
- Unheralded, like some tornado loosed out of the brooding hills, it came to pass
- Unknown, like a seed in fallow ground, was the germ of a plan
- Unmoving as a tombstone
- Untameable as flies
- Unutterable things pressing on my soul like a pent-up storm craving for outlet
- Upcast like foam of the effacing tide
- Uplifting the soul as on dovelike wings
- Uplifting their stony peaks around us like the walls and turrets of a gigantic fortress
- Urgent as the seas
- Uttering wild cries like a creature in pain
V - Vague as a dream
- Vague thoughts that stream shapelessly through her mind like long sad vapors through the twilight sky
- Vanish into thin air, like ghosts at the cockcrow
- Vanished like snow when comes a thaw
- Vanished like vapor before the sun
- Vibrations set quivering like harp strings struck by the hand of a master
- Vociferous praise following like a noisy wave
W - Walking somewhat unsteadily like a blind man feeling his way
- Waves glittered and danced on all sides like millions of diamonds
- We left her and retraced our steps like faithless hounds
- Weak and frail like the vapor of a vale
- Wearing their wounds like stars
- Weary wind, who wanderest like the world's rejected guest
- When a draft might puff them out like a guttering candle
- When arm in arm they both came swiftly running, like a pair of turtle-doves that could not live asunder day or night
- When cards, invitations, and three-corn'd notes fly about like white butterflies
- When she died, her breath whistled like the wind in a keyhole
- When the fever pierced me like a knife
- Where a lamp of deathless beauty shines like a beacon
- Where heroes die as leaves fall
- Where the intricate wheels of trade are grinding on, like a mill
- Where the source of the waters is fine as a thread
- Whilst the lagging hours of the day went by like windless clouds o'er a tender sky
- Whistled sharply in the air like a handful of vipers
- White as a ghost from darkness
- White as chalk
- White as dove or lily, or spirit of the light
- White as the driven snow
- White as the moon's white flame
- White as the sea-bird's wing
- White clouds like daisies
- White hands she moves like swimming swans
- White hands through her hair, like white doves going into the shadow of a wood
- White like flame
- White sails of sloops like specters
- Whose bodies are as strong as alabaster
- Whose hair was as gold raiment on a king
- Whose laugh moves like a bat through silent haunted woods
- Whose little eyes glow like the sparks of fire
- Whose music like a robe of living light reclothed each newborn age
- Windy speech which hits all around the mark like a drunken carpenter
- Winged like an arrow to its mark
- With a sting like a scorpion
- With all the complacency of a homeless cat
- With an angry broken roar, like billows on an unseen shore, their fury burst
- With hate darkling as the swift winter hail
- With music sweet as love
- With sounds like breakers
- With strength like steel
- With the whisper of leaves in one's ear
- With words like honey melting from the comb
- Wits as sharp as gimlets
- Women with tongues like polar needles
- Words as fresh as spring verdure
- Words as soft as rain
- Words like the gossamer film of the summer
- Words sweet as honey from his lips distill'd
- Words were flashing like brilliant birds through the boughs overhead
- Wordsworth, thy music like a river rolls
- Worthless like the conjurer's gold
- Wrangle over details like a grasping pawnbroker
- Wrinkled and scored like a dried apple
- Writhing with an intensity that burnt like a steady flame
Y - Yielding to the charm of the moment
- Yonder flimsy crescent, bent like an archer's bow above the snowy summit
- You are as gloomy to-night as an undertaker out of employment
- You are as hard as stone
- You gave me such chill embraces as the snow-covered heights receive from clouds
- Your blood is red like wine
- Your charms lay like metals in a mine
- Your eyes are like fantastic moons that shiver in some stagnant lake
- Your eyes as blue as violets
- Your eyes they were green and gray like an April day
- Your frail fancies are swallowed up, like chance flowers flung upon the river's current
- Your hair was golden as tints of sunrise
- Your heart is as dry as a reed
- Your locks are like the raven
- Your love shall fall about me like sweet rain
- Your step's like the rain to summer vexed farmer
- Your thoughts are buzzing like a swarm of bees
- Your tongue is like a scarlet snake
- Your voice had a quaver in it just like the linnet
- Youth like a summer morn