Feb 1, 2013

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 astal diamond, or serene morning air
And melting like the stars in June
An09174"> 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