Frank J. Wilstach, comp. A Dictionary of Similes. 1916.
Eye
My eyes like the wheels of a chariot roll around.
—Æschylus (E. B. Browning)
Her eyes were like a butterfly’s gorgeous wings.
—James Lane Allen
Eyes like mountain water that’s flowing on a rock.
—William Allingham
Dovelike eyes, depths as of heaven when charged with gloom.
—Anonymous
Eyes like burnt holes in a blanket.
—Anonymous
Eyes like saucers.
—Anonymous
Eyes transparent as a cloudless sky.
—Anonymous
Eyes, brilliant and humid like the reflection of stars in a well.
—Edmondo de Amicis
Languishing eyes like those of a roe looking tenderly at her young.
—Amriolkais
Eyes like a hind’s in love-time.
—Edwin Arnold
Her sparkling eyes, like Orient pearles,
Did cast a heavenlye light.
—English Ballad
His eyes, like those of a pitiless judge, seemed to go to the very bottom of all questions, to read all natures, all feelings and thoughts.
—Honoré de Balzac
Burning eyes that blaze through a lace veil, like flame through cannon smoke.
—Honoré de Balzac
These lovely lamps, these windows of the soul.
—Seigneur du Bartas
Eyes like flames of sulphur.
—Beaumont and Fletcher
Eyes, like torches, fling their beams around.
—Beaumont and Fletcher
Blue violet, like Pandora’s eye.
—Thomas L. Beddoes
Eyes glazed over like harebells wet with dew.
—Caroline Bowles
Her eyes are bright as stars
In the blue.
—Robert Bridges (American)
Her sunken grey eyes, like reflections from the aspect of an angel.
—Charlotte Brontë
Her eyes are dark and humid,
Like the depth on depth of lustre hid i’ the harebell.
—Robert Browning
With eyes, like fresh-blown thrush-eggs on a thread,
Faint-blue and loosely floating in his head.
—Robert Browning
Doubting eyes,
Like a child that never knew but loveWhom words of wrath surprise.
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Shining eyes, like antique jewels set in Parian statue-stone.
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Eyes like the summer’s light blue sky.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton
Beautiful eyes in the face of a handsome woman are like eloquence to speech.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton
His eyes are like a balance, apt to propend each way, and to be weighed down with every wench’s looks.
—Robert Burton
Eyes like the dawn of day.
—Frances Anne Butler
Brilliant eyes, swift-darting as the stars.
—Thomas Carlyle
Twin violets by a shady brook were like her eyes.
—Alice Cary
Eyes, shining like thin skins full of blood.
—Alice Cary
What a curious workmanship is that of the eye, which is in the body, as the sun in the world; set in the head as in a watch-tower, having the softest nerves for receiving the greater multitude of spirits necessary for the act of vision.
—Stephen Charnock
Those dry eyes of his shining more like poisoned stones than living tissue.
—Joseph Conrad
Expectant yellow eyes, like a cat watching the preparation of a saucer of milk.
—Joseph Conrad
Her eyes are sapphires set in snow.
—Henry Constable
An eye like the polar star.
—Eliza Cook
O my love has an eye,Like a star in the sky.
—Barry Cornwall
Honest eyes … Blue like the tropic skies.
—Gabriel D’Annunzio
Eyes, gleaming and sparkling like lizards’ eyes in the crevices of old walls.
—Alphonse Daudet
Her eyes grew bright and large,
Like springs rain-fed that dilate their marge.
—Aubrey De Vere
Her eyes, like stars in midnight waters glossed.
—Aubrey De Vere
Her eyes are bright as beryl stones that in the tankard wink.
—Austin Dobson
Eyes like the morning.
—Austin Dobson
Eyes like live coals.
—Alexandre Dumas, père
Her eyes like shadows in the light of torches on the Mount of Doom.
—Maurice Francis Egan
Old men’s eyes are like old men’s memories, they are strongest for things a long way off.
—George Eliot
When a man speaks the truth in the spirit of truth, his eye is as clear as the heavens. When he has base ends, and speaks falsely, the eye is muddy, and sometimes asquint.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
An eye can threaten like a loaded and levelled gun, or can insult like hissing or kicking; or, in its altered mood, by beams of kindness, it can make the heart dance with joy.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
But oh, to see his solar eyes
Like meteors which chose their way
And rived the dark like a new day.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Her eyes like the radiance the sunbeams bring.
—Ancient Erse
Eyes like the summer skies when twin stars beam above.
—Francis A. Fahy
Eyes as azure as the wave.
—Violet Fane
Eyes like dark blue pansies.
—Norman Gale
Eyes as greye as glasse.
—George Gascoigne
A burning eye, yellow and phosphoric like the eye of a crocodile or a lion.
—Théphile Gautier
The most dazzling stars are pebbles without lustre beside the diamonds of her eyes.
—Joseph A. de Gobineau
His eyes were like the eyes of doves when washed by the dews of the morning.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Mary with her cheerful eyes,
Like heartsease where a dew drop lies.
—Edmund Gosse
Azure eyes, like stars upon the river’s brink.
—Edmund Gosse
Her eyes, fair eyes, like to the purest lights,
That animate the sun, or cheer the day;
In whom the shining sunbeams brightly play,
Whiles fancy doth on them divine delights.
—Robert Greene
Her eyes two twinkling stars in winter nights.
—Robert Greene
Her eyes like glassy streams.
—Robert Greene
The dame had eyes like lightning, or the flash
That runs before the hot report of thunder.
—Robert Greene
Two eyes,
Like heaven’s bright lamps in matchless beauty shining.
—Robert Greene
His eyes were grey,
Like Titan in a Summer day.
—Robert Greene
Eyes like violets steep’d in dew.
—J. C. Guthrie
Her eyes, like moonbeams glowing.
—Shraz Hfiz
Eyes that mock the diamond’s blaze.
—John Harrington
Eyes like twin blue stars.
—Heinrich Heine
Ambiguous … blue eyes like the china dog on the mantel piece.
—O. Henry
Eyes frosty blue, like a winter sea that is made bright, not warm, by the sun.
—Maurice Hewlett
Eyes like a hare’s, that look sideways for danger.
—Maurice Hewlett
Eyes like stars, robed in dull red.
—Maurice Hewlett
Shrewd old party … eyes like gimlets.
—Headon Hill
The lack-lustre eye, rayless as a Beacon street door-plate in August.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes
An eye as clear and steady as the evening star.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes
Eyes … mild as a gazelle’s.
—Thomas Hood
Brilliant eyes,
As deeply dark as desert skies.
—Laurence Hope
Dreaming, wistful eyes,
Dark and deep as mysterious skies,
Seen from a vessel at sea.
—Laurence Hope
Wistful eyes,
As luminous and tender as Kotri’s twilight spies.
—Laurence Hope
His eyes … deep sunk beneath his lowering brows,
Like caverns by a moonlit sea.
—Richard Monckton Milnes
Eyes … overflow like two cups filled above the brim.
—Victor Hugo
Sweet eyes … tender as the deeps in yonder skies.
—Jean Ingelow
The sophist’s eye,
Like a sharp spear, went through her utterly,
Keen, cruel, perceant, stinging.
—John Keats
Eyes like two streams of liquid light.
—Frances Anne Kemble
Eyes like the dawn of day.
—Frances Anne Kemble
Her eye
Flames like a fresh caught hind’s.
—Charles Kingsley
Eyes that droop like summer flowers.
—Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Eyes like the flower that was Rousseau’s delight.
—Andrew Lang
O lovely eyes of azure,
Clear as the waters of a brook that run
Limpid and laughing in the summer sun!
—Henry W. Longfellow
I dislike an eye that twinkles like a star. Those only are beautiful which, like the planets, have a steady, lambent light—are luminous, but not sparkling.
—Henry W. Longfellow
Eyes dilated, as if the spirit-world were open before him, and some beauteous vision were standing there.
—Henry W. Longfellow
Like the stars that nightly shine,
Thy sweet eyes shed light divine.
—Samuel Lover
Flaw-seeing eyes, like needle points.
—James Russell Lowell
Eyes pe[a]rcing like the Sun beames.
—John Lyly
Blue eyes, like Delft saucers.
—Maarten Maartens
His eyes like meteors of night.
—James Macpherson
Bright eyes
Which were like lotus-blossoms.
—Mahabharata
Eyes … like restless stars in the pit of night.
—Edwin Markham
Vacant eyes, blue as the flowers of the flax plant.
—Guy de Maupassant
Unfathomable eyes, which hid their secrets under the undisturbed serenity of majestic repose, like a mountain lake, whose waters seem black on account of their depth.
—Guy de Maupassant
Her eye beams as kindly and bright,
As the sun in the azure-tinged sky.
—Catulle Mendès
Blessed eyes, like a pair of suns,
Shine in the sphere of smiling.
—Thomas Middleton
And the bright dew-bead on the bramble lies, like liquid upon beauty’s eyes.
—James Montgomery
Eyes like setting planets, weak and dim.
—Charles L. Moore
Each bright eye,
Like violets after morning’s shower,
The brighter for the tears gone by.
—Thomas Moore
Eyes, whose sleepy lid like snow on violets lies.
—Thomas Moore
Eyes as soft as doves.
—Dinah Maria Mulock
Eyes, like reflected moonbeams on a distant lake.
—Ossian
Eyes flashed like the sun playing on water.
—Ouida
Eyes like blue heavens in a night of frost.
—Ouida
Eyes shining like the planets.
—Ouida
Her eyes were of a deep brown hue, like the velvety brown of a stag’s throat.
—Ouida
Her eyes are like free-booters, living upon the spoile of stragglers.
—Sir Thomas Overbury
Eyes like an orange-grove
In whose enchanted bowers the magic fire-flies rove.
—Sir Thomas Overbury
What eyes! [Daniel Webster’s] like charcoal fire in the bottom of a deep, dark well.
—Theodore Parker
Eyes blazed like a bale-fire.
—John Payne
Her black eyes sparkled like sunbeams on a river: a clear, deep, liquid radiance, the reflection of ethereal fire.
—Thomas L. Peacock
Eyes … stared like windows at the peep of day.
—Stephen Phillips
The eye, like a shattered mirror, multiplies the images of its sorrow.
—Edgar Allan Poe
Luminous eyes,
Brightly expressive as the twins of Leda.
—Edgar Allan Poe
The eye is the window of the soul; the mouth, the door; the intellect, the will, are seen in the eye.
—Hiram Powers
The eyes are the pioneers that first announce the soft tale of love.
—Propertius
Eyes glittering like basilisks.
—Charles Reade
Her eye worked like an ice gimlet in her daughter’s face.
—Charles Reade
Her eyes are blue and dewy as the glimmering Summer-dawn.
—James Whitcomb Riley
Eyes as fresh and clear as morning skies.
—James Whitcomb Riley
With a pair o’ eyes like two fried eggs.
—James Whitcomb Riley
Her eyes are like the open heaven
Holy and pure from sin.
—Christina Georgina Rossetti
Dim dried eyes like an exhausted well.
—Christina Georgina Rossetti
Eyes
As of the sky and sea on a gray day.
—Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Her eyes were deeper than the depth
Of waters stilled at even.
—Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Her dazzling eye;
As liquid in its brilliancy as the deep blue of midnight ocean,
When underneath, with trembling motion,
The phosphor light floats by.
—John Ruskin
Her eyes were like a heaven, where sunlight always glows.
—A. J. Ryan
His eyes like those that Houris wear.
—Sadi
Thine eyes
Mirage of sultry prisons, flashing in—
And out, like fulg’rous lightning through dark skies.
—Francis S. Saltus
As a moonbeam white,
As a starbeam white,
Was her eye of iris ray.
—Francis S. Saltus
An eye, like Mars, to threaten and command.
—William Shakespeare
Her eyes, as murder’d with the view,
Like stars ashamed of day, themselves withdrew.
—William Shakespeare
Thy eyes’ windows fall,
Like death, when he shuts up the day of life.
—William Shakespeare
His eye
Red as ’twould burn Rome.
—William Shakespeare
His eyes, like glow-worms, shine when he doth fret.
—William Shakespeare
Her eyes, like marigolds, had sheath’d their light,
And canopied in darkness sweetly lay,
Till they might open to adorn the day.
—William Shakespeare
Eyes as fair
As star-beams among the twilight trees.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley
His faint eyes,
Like dew upon a sleeping flower.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley
Thine eyes are like the deep, blue boundless heaven.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley
Eyes like kindling flame.
—Lydia Huntley Sigourney
In her hazel eyes her thoughts lay clear
As pebbles in a brook.
—Alexander Smith
Her goodly eyes like sapphires shining bright.
—Edmund Spenser
An eye is, for all the world, exactly like a cannon, in this respect, That it is not so much the eye or the cannon, in themselves, as it is the carriage of the eye, and the carriage of the cannon; by which both the one and the other are enabled to do so much execution.
—Laurence Sterne
An old light smolders in her eye
There! she looks up. They grow and glow
Like mad laughs or a rhapsody
That flickers out in woe.
—Trumbull Stickney
Eyes as glad as summer.
—Algernon Charles Swinburne
Gold-eyed as the shore-flower shelterless
Whereon the sharp-breathed sea blows bitterness,
A storm-star that the seafarers of love
Strain their wind-wearied eyes for glimpses of.
—Algernon Charles Swinburne
Your grave majestic eyes
Like a bird’s warbled words
Speak, and sorrow dies.
—Algernon Charles Swinburne
Eyes,
Pale as the skies.
—Arthur Symons
His threatening eyes
Like flaming torches burned.
—Torquato Tasso
Eyes … clear as the unshadowed Grecian heaven.
—Bayard Taylor
Like a blue spot in the sky
Was her clear and loving eye.
—Sir Henry Taylor
Eyes like heaven’s own blue.
—Esaias Tegner
His eyes are like the eyelids of the morning.
—Old Testament
Thine eyes are like the fish-pools in Heshbon, by the gate of Bathrabbim.
—Old Testament
Eyes like unto a flame of fire.
—Old Testament
But woe’s me, and woe’s me,
For the secrets of her eyes!
In my visions fearfully
They are ever shown to be
As fringèd pools, whereof each lies
Pallid—dark beneath the skies
Of a night that is
But one blear necropolis
And her eyes a little tremble, in the wind of her own sighs.
—Francis Thompson
Like pansies dark i’ the June o’ the year, grow my Love’s glad eyes.
—James Thomson
Her eyes are like the statues,—mild, grave, and wide.
—Paul Verlaine
Eyes, dark and mysterious as Night’s; but, like Night’s own eyes, ready, I thought, to call up the throbbing fires of a million stars.
—Theodore Watts-Dunton
Eyes flashing like sapphires.
—Theodore Watts-Dunton
Eyes like English skies, where seemed to play
Deep azure dreams behind the tender grey.
—Theodore Watts-Dunton
O deep eyes,
Darker and softer than the bluest dusk
Of August violets, darker and deeper
Like crystal fathomless lakes in summer moons.
—Augusta Webster
How brilliant and mirthful the light of her eye,
Like a star glancing out from the blue of the sky.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Eyes like a bright blue-bell.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Your eyes are like fantastic moons that shiver in some stagnant lake.
—Oscar Wilde
Eyes half veiled …
Like bluest waters seen, through mists of rain.
—Oscar Wilde
Blue eyes shimmer with angel glances
Like spring violets over the sea.
—Constance F. Woolson
Her eyes as stars of twilight fair.
—William Wordsworth
Eyes
Like the harebells bathed in dew.
—William Wordsworth
Eyes like sunbeams.
—Johann Zschokke