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

Thomas Otway

Caper like a dancing master.

Charming as a god.

Constant as the stars that never move.

Dark as the hush’d silence of the grave.

Dear as the vital warmth that feeds my life.

Fair as the summer-beauty of the fields.

Fairer than snow on the raven’s back.

False as the adulterate promises of favorites in power when poor men court them.

False as the wind, the waters, and the weather.

Free as first innocence.

Furious as the wind.

Gay as if his life were young.

To-day we are here, to-morrow gone, like the shadow that vanisheth, like the grass that withereth, or like the flower that fadeth; or indeed like anything, or rather like nothing.

Harmless as the turtle of the woods.

High as most fantastic woman’s wits could reach.

Honest as the nature of man first made, ere fraud and vice were fashions.

Hushed, as if nature were retired.

Languish like a withering flower.

Moans like a tender infant in its cradle,
Whose nurse has left it.

Plain as the light in the sun or as the man in the moon.

Pure as Cato’s daughter.

Rough as the winds.

Like a lull’d babe she slept, and knew no fear.

Soft as angels.

Spotless and sincere, as the chaste vows of the holy vestals are.

Stout as death.

Sweet as the shepherd’s pipe upon the mountains.

Shining through tears, like April-suns in showers, that labor to o’ercome the cloud that loads them.

My thoughts, like birds, were frightened from their nest.

He threw me from his breast, like a detested sin.

Traitors in their fall are like the sun,
Who still looks fairest at his going down.

Trembling like a hunted prey.

Unconfin’d as our first parents in their Eden were.

Watchful as when fowlers their game will spring.

Wide as a church door.

Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD