Frank J. Wilstach, comp. A Dictionary of Similes. 1916.
Transient
Transient as the summer storm.
—Anonymous
Transient as the inconstant sigh.
—Lord Byron
Transient … as is the fleeting hour.
—William Cowper
Transient as breath shaking a flame.
—George Eliot
Transient as lightning.
—Thomas Hardy
Transient as vapours glimm’ring thro’ the glades.
—Walter Harte
Transient as the dew.
—John Ruskin
Transient as faith or as terror that bows men’s knees.
—Algernon Charles Swinburne
Transient as the glance
Of flying sunbeams.
—William Wordsworth