Contents
-BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
Frank J. Wilstach, comp. A Dictionary of Similes. 1916.
William Cowper
Beautiful as April rains.Black as the mine.Blithe as finches sing.Blithe as shepherd at a wake.Bountiful as April rains.Bright as orient morn.Our wasted oil unprofitably burns,
Like hidden lamps in old sepulchral urns.Cheerful as the day.Conspicuous as the brightness of a star.Dear as freedom is.As dreadful as the Manichean god.Drowsy as the clicking of a clock.Dumb as a senator.Durable as yonder spheres.Like a coy maiden, Ease, when courted most,
Furtherest retires—an idol, at whose shrine
Who oft’nest sacrifice are favour’d least.Elegant as simplicity.Fades
Like the fair flow’r dishevell’d in the wind.Fancy, like the finger of a clock,
Runs the great circuit, and is still at home.Fatal as the scythe of death.Fled like a dream.Forgotten, as the foliage of thy youth.Forlorn
As midnight, and despairing of a morn.Fresh and as gay
As the fairest and sweetest, that blow
On the beautiful bosom of May.Frowning, as if in his unconscious arm
He held the thunder.Gay,
As the fairest and sweetest, that blow
On the beautiful bosom of May.Harmless as an infant’s play.Indistinct, like language uttered in a dream.Lenient as soft opiates to the mind.A hand as lib’ral as the light of day.Lust, like a lawless headlong flood,
Impregnated with ooze and mud,
Descending fast on every side,
Once mingles with the sacred tide,
Farewell the soul-enliv’ning scene!
The banks that bore a smiling green,
With rank defilement overspread,
Bewail their flow’ry beauties dead.Meek as the man Moses.Pleasant as youth with all its blossoms crown’d.Progressive as a stream.As rare almost as hedge-rows in the wild.Rose like a kite.Severe as vengeance.Shifting, like the weather.Silently as a dream.Man in society is like a flow’r,
Blown in its native bed.
’Tis there alone
His facilities expanded in full bloom
Shine out, there only reach their proper use.Soft as the passing wind.As creeping ivy clings to wood or stone,
And hides the ruin that it feeds upon,
So sophistry cleaves close to and protects
Sin’s rotten trunk, concealing its defects.Sturdy as a wild ass’s colt.Swifter than a shadow flee.Transient … as is the fleeting hour.Trembling, as if eternity were hung
In balance on his conduct.Tremble, as the creatures of an hour
Ought at the view of almighty pow’r.Trivial as a parrot’s prate.True as a needle to the pole.Our wasted oil unprofitably burns,
Like hidden lamps in old sepulchral urns.Useless as a candle in a skull.Wan,
Like a fat squab upon a Chinese fan.Warm as ecstasy.
