Frank J. Wilstach, comp. A Dictionary of Similes. 1916.
Overwhelm
Overwhelmed, like the miner upon whom a roof has just fallen.
—Alexandre Dumas, père
As when a torrent, swell’d with wintry rains,
Pours from the mountains o’er the delug’d plains,
And pines and oaks, from their foundations torn,
A country’s ruins! to the seas are borne:
Fierce Ajax thus o’erwhelms the yielding throng.
—Homer (Pope)
O’erwhelming his fair sight,
Like misty vapors when they blot the sky.
—William Shakespeare