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

Francis Thompson

Artless as the air.

Candid as the skies.

Dreadful as battle arrayed.

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.

Forward like a wind-blown flame.

Gaze for gaze
As baby looks on baby.

Hacked like dull wood of every day.

Hot as a swinked gypsy.

The red
Is meshed in the brown,
Like a rubied sun in a Venice sail.

New as sight.

Old as hope.

Sanguine, like a globe of blood.

Shameful as a sin.

Shook like loosened music.

Her waving hair shook like music.

Strengthless as a noon-belated moon,
Or as the glazing eyes of watery heaven,
When the sick night sinks into deadly swoon.

Throbbing like a wounded bird.

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