Frank J. Wilstach, comp. A Dictionary of Similes. 1916.
Swift
As the breezes swift.
—Thomas Aird
Swift as the lightning flash.
—Mark Akenside
Swift as a cannon ball.
—Anonymous
Swift as fate.
—Anonymous
Swift as kindling flames arise.
—Anonymous
Swift as the glance of a falling star.
—Anonymous
Swifter than fleeing Daphne’s twinkling feet.
—Anonymous
Swift as the steed that feels the slackened rein.
—Anonymous
Swift like a simoon of the desert.
—Anonymous
Swifter than the falcon.
—Max Beerbohm
Swift as a sun-beam.
—Thomas Blacklock
Swift as the summer lightning.
—R. D. Blackmore
Swift as arrow.
—William Blake
Swift as the eye can mark.
—Henry H. Brownell
Swift as Jove’s lightning.
—William Byrd
Swift almost as a human smile may chase
A frown from some conciliated face.
—Pedro Calderón de la Barca
Swefte as descendeynge lemes [rays] of roddie lyghte plonged to the hulstred [secret] bedde of loveynge [washing] seas.
—Thomas Chatterton
Swefte as a feether’d takel [Arrow].
—Thomas Chatterton
Swefte as my wyshe.
—Thomas Chatterton
Swift as the flying clouds distilling rain.
—Thomas Chatterton
Swefte as the rayne-storme toe the erthe alyghtes.
—Thomas Chatterton
Swefte, as the rayne uponne an Aprylle daie.
—Thomas Chatterton
Swefte as the roareynge wyndes.
—Thomas Chatterton
Swift as fowel in flight.
—Geoffrey Chaucer
As swifte as pelet out of gonne.
—Geoffrey Chaucer
Swift as a spirit.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Swift as dreams.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Swift as a sun ray.
—Eliza Cook
Swift as a lover’s dreams.
—Barry Cornwall
Swift as Care.
—Nathaniel Cotton
As swift and fierce as tempest from the north.
—Abraham Cowley
Swift as the wings of Morn.
—Abraham Cowley
Swifter than a shadow flee.
—William Cowper
Swift as a star falls through the night.
—George Darley
Swift as a sunshot dart of light.
—George Darley
Swift as a whirlwind.
—Thomas Dekker
Swift as dead leaves by tempest borne.
—Aubrey De Vere
Swift as the scattered clouds on high.
—Alfred Domett
As swift as the glance of the arrowy lance
That the storm spirit flings from high.
—Joseph Rodman Drake
Swift as the wings of sound.
—George Eliot
A swift movement, which was like a chained up resolution set free at last.
—George Eliot
Swift as fate.
—Philip Freneau
Swift as vision.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Swift as the flight of lightning through the air.
—William Harbington
Swift as a flood of fire.
—Homer (Pope)
Swift as the vulture leaping on his prey.
—George Eliot
Swift as the wind.
—George Eliot
Swift as a swallow heading south.
—Laurence Hope
Swifter than the rush of wind
That lifts the sea-gull off the lake.
—Douglas Hyde
Swift as a star.
—Sir William Jones
Swift as a fathoming plummet down he fell.
—John Keats
As swift
As bird on wing to breast its eggs again.
—George Eliot
Swift as fairy thought.
—George Eliot
Swifter than centaurs after rapine bent.
—George Eliot
Swifter than sight.
—George Eliot
Swift as the cloven tongues of Pentecost.
—Harriet E. Hamilton King
Flies as swift as shafts the bowmen pour.
—Andrew Lang
Swift as the lightning’s rapid flame darts on the unsuspecting sight.
—John Langhorne
Swift as a flash.
—Henry W. Longfellow
Swift as the thunderbolt.
—Richard Lovelace
Swift as the sea-bird’s wing.
—Samuel Lover
Swift as runs a wind-wave over grass.
—Gerald Massey
Swift as a blush in the cheeks of seventeen.
—George Meredith
Swift as the lightning glance.
—John Milton
Swift as the sparkle of a glancing star.
—John Milton
Swift as Death’s own arrows dart.
—James Montgomery
Swifter than the frighted dove.
—James Montgomery
Fly swifter than light.
—Dinah Maria Mulock
Swift as mercury.
—Thomas Nash
Swift, like some fierce bird of prey.
—Robert Pollok
Swift as an arrow soaring from the bow.
—Alexander Pope
Swift as a cloud gust-driven from the sun.
—T. Buchanan Read
Swift as a shadow o’er the meadow grass chased by the sunshine.
—T. Buchanan Read
Swift as signal fires.
—T. Buchanan Read
Swift as memory.
—Edouard Rod
Swift as the fleeting shades upon the golden corn.
—Nicholas Rowe
Swift as a hawk.
—Charles Sangster
Like a sunbeam, swift.
—Sir Walter Scott
Swift as a shadow.
—William Shakespeare
Swift as breathed stags.
—William Shakespeare
Swift as frenzy’s thoughts.
—William Shakespeare
Swift as lead.
—William Shakespeare
As swift
As meditation, or the thoughts of love.
—William Shakespeare
Swift as quicksilver.
—William Shakespeare
Swift as stones
Enforced from the old Assyrian slings.
—William Shakespeare
Swifter than arrow from the Tartar’s bow.
—William Shakespeare
Swift as thought.
—William Shakespeare
Swift in motion as a ball.
—William Shakespeare
Swifter than he that gibbets on the brewer’s bucket.
—William Shakespeare
Swifter than the moon’s sphere.
—William Shakespeare
Swift as a cloud between the sea and sky.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley
Swift as fire.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley
Swift as greyhounds.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley
Swift as leaves on autumn’s tempest shed.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley
Swift as smoke from a volcano springs.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley
Swift as twinkling beams.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley
Swifter than summer’s flight.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley
Swifter than youth’s delight.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley
Swift as a beam of morning.
—Elizabeth S. Sheppard
Swift as an arrow in its flight.
—Robert Southey
Swift as a falling meteor.
—Robert Southey
Swift as the bittern soars on spiral wing.
—Robert Southey
Swift away like fabrics in the summer’s clouds.
—Robert Southey
Swift as any bucke in chace.
—Edmund Spenser
More swift than Myrrh’ or Daphne in her race.
—Edmund Spenser
Swift as the flame devours the crackling wood.
—Statius
Swift as the headlong torrents of a flood.
—Edmund Spenser
Swift as a passing bird.
—Robert Louis Stevenson
Swift and steadfast as a sea-mew’s wing.
—Algernon Charles Swinburne
Swift as a shadow.
—Algernon Charles Swinburne
Swift as eternity.
—Arthur Symons
As swift as fiery lightning kindled new.
—Torquato Tasso
As swift as the eagle flieth.
—Old Testament
As swift as the roes upon the mountains.
—Old Testament
Swift as the waters.
—Old Testament
Swifter than a weaver’s shuttle.
—Old Testament
Swifter than the eagles of the heaven.
—Old Testament
Now my days are swifter than a post: they flee away, they see no good.
—Old Testament
Swift as desire.
—Thomas Tickell
Swift as the motions of desire.
—Isaac Watts
Swift as the Polar breeze.
—Henry Kirke White
Swift as the eagle’s glance of fire.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Swift as a rocketing woodcock.
—Harry Leon Wilson
Swift as a Thracian Nymph o’er field and height.
—William Wordsworth
Swift as darted flame.
—Edward Young