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Home  »  A Dictionary of Similes  »  Fly

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

Fly

Each mysterious form,
Flew like the pictures of a morning dream.
—Mark Akenside

Flew along like a bird in a tempest.
—Anonymous

Flies like antic shapes in dreams.
—Anonymous

His arms flew like a windmill.
—Anonymous

Flying, like blown flame.
—Anonymous

Flies like chaff wide scattered by the wind.
—Anonymous

Flew like feathered Mercury.
—Anonymous

Flew like granado.
—Anonymous

Words flew out of his mouth as shot out of a gatling gun.
—Anonymous

Flew like a cloth-yard shaft from a bended yew.
—Richard Harris Barham

Fly, like a yelping Cur with a Bottle at his Tail.
—Colley Cibber

Fly as the leaves before the autumn tempest.
—Colley Cibber

Fly as a bird on the wings of Night.
—Arabian Nights

Fly like … the northern wind.
—Francis Beaumont

Fly, like a full sail.
—Beaumont and Fletcher

Fly like chaff before the wind.
—James Boswell

Flying … like scatterings of dead leaves in autumn-gusts.
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Flew, as if he knew
A frenzied wretch was on his back.
—Eliza Cook

Fly as from the plague.
—John Davies

Flies like a feather in the blast.
—Joseph Rodman Drake

Away like a glance of thought he flew.
—Joseph Rodman Drake

Flies like the nimble journeys of the light.
—John Dryden

Fly like doves that the exalted eagle spies.
—Richard Duke

Friends have flown, like leaves whirled away by the blast.
—Mrs. E. Forrester

A headlong crowd is flying
Like a billow that has broken and is shivered into spray.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes

Fly
Like the cannons that burst on the Fourth of July.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes

Flew as in a dream.
—Victor Hugo

Sparks that fly
Like chaff from a threshing-floor.
—Henry W. Longfellow

Flies like a bird unfettered from her cage.
—Maria Lowell

Flew like sparks in burnt up paper.
—James Russell Lowell

Fly as fast as Iris or Jove’s Mercury.
—Christopher Marlowe

Fly as fast as the hare from the horn.
—Brian Melbancke

Flown
Like a smoke melted thinner than air,
That the vacancy doth disown.
—George Meredith

Flew around like the spray on a storm-driven deck.
—Joaquin Miller

Flown, like morning clouds, a thousand ways.
—James Montgomery

All flew like the down of a thistle.
—Clement. C. Moore

Swiftly flew as glancing flame.
—Thomas Moore

Flown are the days with their winged delights, as the odor is gone from the summer.
—Louise Chandler Moulton

Flew like the swift and dazzling flight of gold-winged orioles.
—Ouida

As before the pike will fly
Dace and roach and such small fry;
As the leaf before the gale,
As the chaff beneath the flail,
As before the wolf the flocks,
As before the hounds the fox;
As before the cat the mouse,
As the rat from falling house;
As the fiend before the spell
Of holy water, book, and bell;
As the ghost from dawning day.
—Thomas L. Peacock

Some fly, like pendulums, from good to evil,
And in that point are madder than the devil.
—Christopher Pitt

He flies like a dog that has burnt his paw.
—Osmanli Proverb

Flew as the spirit flies from the dead.
—Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Fly like eagles which pursue their prey.
—George Sandys

Flew at him, like the young hero Siegfried when he attacked the wild, long-bearded dwarf Alberich.
—Joseph V. von Scheffel

Flown like the light clouds of a Summer’s day.
—John Scott

Fly, like mist before the zephyr’s sigh.
—Sir Walter Scott

Fly like chidden Mercury from Jove.
—William Shakespeare

Like falcon to the lure, away she flies.
—William Shakespeare

Fly like thought.
—William Shakespeare

Like soldiers, when their captain once doth yield,
They basely fly.
—William Shakespeare

Like a flock of rooks at a farmer’s gun
Night’s dreams and terrors, every one,
Fled from the brains which are their prey.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley

Flew like the wind.
—John Skelton

Flew at him like an hellish fiend.
—Edmund Spenser

Flew like a wyld gote.
—Edmund Spenser

Fly, like scattered sheepe.
—Edmund Spenser

Flew away as lightly as the wind.
—Edmund Spenser

Flying fast as roebucke through the fen.
—Edmund Spenser

Flie, as leapes the deere fled from the hunter’s face.
—Earl of Stirling

Fly as if the devil drove.
—Jonathan Swift

Flown as flies the blown foam’s feather.
—Jonathan Swift

Fly as the eagle that hasteth to eat.
—Jonathan Swift

Fly away as a dream.
—Jonathan Swift

Flew like a blossom blown about.
—Walter Thornbury

Flown,
Like birds from the nest when their wings have grown.
—John T. Trowbridge

Fly,
Like doves before the gathering storm.
—George Sylvester Viereck

Flown,
Like the morning-glory’s cup.
—Amelia B. Welby

Fly like flower-seeds on the breeze.
—N. P. Willis