SECTION VIII
STRIKING SIMILES
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 lip
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 novellete
[novellete = short novel]
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 [blithe = carefree and lighthearted]
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
[warp = lengthwise threads]
[woof = crosswise threads]
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 [evanescent = vanishing like vapor]
Every flake that fell from heaven was like an angel's kiss
Every lineament was clear as in the sculptor's thought
[lineament = characteristic feature]
Everyone 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
[aigrette = ornamental tuft of upright plumes]
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 river-side
Haunts you like the memory of some former happiness
He began to laugh with that sibilant laugh
which resembles the hiss of a serpent
[sibilant = producing a hissing sound]
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 [fagged = worked to exhaustion]
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
[tremulous = timid or fearful]
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
[writhen = twisted]
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
[invective = abusive language]
[vituperation = abusive language]
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
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