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