Frank J. Wilstach, comp. A Dictionary of Similes. 1916.

Bliss Carman

Austere as the dawn.

Calm as a field of snow.

Calm, unmoved as the very noon and centre of being.

Cleave to you as a soul to its freedom cleaves.

Ephemeral as dew.

Fumed, like champagne that is fizzy.

All gracious and good as when God made the living creatures, and none was afraid.

As humble as the grass.

Intimate, fluctant, free, like the clasp and the cling of waters.

Jerking … like the lid of a boiling pot.

Melancholy as Irish melodies.

Mounts as a soul from flesh escaping.

I ran like the drift on the ice low curled
When the winds of Yule are abroad on the world.

Scattered with as little premeditation as the birds scattered their songs.

A sigh like driven wind or foam.

Sighing … as though the sea were mourning above an ancient grief.

The sea sparkled as if it smiled.

Stark as a gust of the sea.

Still as a summer noon.

Straight as a bull’s back against the white sky.

Sure as the wold gulls make seaward.

Sweet as the sundown.

Tender as April twilight.

Veers and swings,
Like an homing swallow with nightfall in her wings.

Whimper like a child for dread.

White as a cloth.