Contents
-BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
Frank J. Wilstach, comp. A Dictionary of Similes. 1916.
William Wordsworth
Adventurous as a bee.As bare
As winter trees.Beauteous as the silver moon.Beautiful as heaven.Blithe as the lark on sun-gilt wings
High poised, or as the wren that sings
In shady places to proclaim
Her modest gratitude.Bold as day.Bright as a sunbeam sleeping till a shower
Brush it away, or cloud pass over it.Bright as spring.Bright as the glimpses of eternity,
To saints accorded in their mortal hour.Bright as the dazzling snow.Busy as a wren.Busy as the lightning.Calm as a frozen lake when ruthless winds
Blow fiercely.Calm as the dew-drops.Calm as lakes that sleep.Careless as if nothing were.Cheeks were red as ruddy clover.As cheerful as a grove in Spring.Clamorous as a horn
Re-echoed by a naked rock.Clatter like a loose casement in the wind.Constant as a soaring lark.Constant as the motion of the day.Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way.Softly creeping, like a breath of air,
Such as is sometimes seen, and hardly seen,
To brush the still breast of a crystal lake.Intricately crossed,
Like leafless underboughs, ’mid some thick grove.Curls, like ivy.Depart
Like blighted buds; or clouds that mimicked land
Before the sailor’s eye.Distrest
Like a poor bird—her plundered nest
Hovering around with dolorous moan.Docile as a managed horse.Downcast as a woman fearing blame.Eager as a fine-nosed Hound.Her eyes as stars of twilight fair.Eyes
Like the harebells bathed in dew.Fades like the lustre of an evening cloud.Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.Fast as a musician scatters sound
Out of an instrument.Fear is like a cloak which old men huddle
About their love, as if to keep it warm.Firm and unflinching, as the lighthouse reared
On the Island-rock.Firm as solid crystal.Fixed as a star.Fled as fast as doth the haunted fawn.Fled
Like vapour, like a towering cloud, dissolved.Fleet as the shadows.Fleet as days and months and years.Fleeting as health or beauty.Flounder on, like wounded whales
Tossed on the bosom of a stormy sea.Flow,
Like smoke, along the level of the blast,
In mighty currents.Forgotten like a dream.Free as the Sun.Free as our desires.Freely as the streams of Eden flowed.Fresh as banner bright, unfurl’d to music suddenly.Fresh as a lark mounting at break of day.Gambol like a dancing skiff.Gentle as an infant child.Gentle as the morning light.Glares, like a troubled Spirit.Gliding like morning mist
Enkindled by the sun.Glimmered like a pine tree dimly viewed
Through Alpine vapors.Green as the salt-sea billows.Happy as a child.Happy as a Lover.As happy as birds in their bowers.Happy as a wave.Harmless as a babe.Of harsher import than the curfew-knell
That spoke the Norman Conqueror’s stern behest.Haunted me like a passion.Heart as calm as lakes that sleep,
In frosty moonlight glistening.Heavy as frost.Helpless as a sailor cast on desert rock.Helpless … as the blind.High as manhood’s noon.Hushed as night.Hushed
As the unbreathing air, when not a leaf
Stirs in the mighty woods.Poetry is the first and last of all knowledge: it is immortal as the heart of man.Joyless as the blind.Keen and eager as a fine-nosed hound.His face was keen as is the wind
That cuts along the hawthorn fence.Kindly as the spirit of society.Lank as a ghost.Light as a buoyant bark from wave to wave.Light as a sunbeam glides along the hills.Lonely … as a crow on the sands.I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills.Loud as any mill.Lovely as a Lapland night.Lovely as spring’s first rose.Meek and patient as a sheathèd sword.As mute as Jedoro Tower.Naked as a Tower.Natural as dreams to feverish sleep.Opposite as heaven and hell.Pallid as a ghost.Passed like a fancy that is swept away.Peaceful as the morning.Pleasant as roses in the thickets blown.More precious far
Than that accumulated store of gold
And orient gems, which, for a day of need,
The Sultan hides deep in ancestral tombs.Pure as nature is.Purple, like the blush of even.Quiet as a Nun
Breathless with adoration.As quietly as spots of sky
Among the evening clouds.Red as ruddy clover.Regretted like the nightingale’s last note.Reposes,
Like relics in an urn.Restless as a veering wind.Restored
Like a re-appearing Star.Retired as noontide dew.Returning, like a ghost unlaid.Roar like lions for their prey.Robust as ever rural labor bred.Scattering, like birds escaped the fowler’s net.Serene as day.Shun, like a shattered bark, the storm.Silent as a picture.Silent as a standing pool.Silent as the skies.Sleeps, like a caterpillar sheathed in ice.Smooth as marble or a waveless sea.Snug as a child that hides itself in sport
’Mid a green hay-cock in a sunny field.Soft as a cloud.Split,
Like fields of ice rent by the polar wind.Spread like a halo round a misty moon.Spread like a sea.Spread like plagues.Spread like day.The slaughter spread like flame.Startled, as if some new-created thing
Enriched the earth, or Faery of the woods
Bounded before him.I looked with steadiness, as sailors look
On the north star, or watch-tower’s distant lamp.Still
As the mute swan that floats adown the stream.Strong as guilty fear.As sure as there’s a moon in Heaven.Swept
As by a plague.Sweet as morning fragrance shed
From flowers.Swells like the bosom of a man set free.Swift as a Thracian Nymph o’er field and height.Taunts, like Vulcan out of heaven.Toss like a ship at anchor, rocked by storms.Tranquil as a summer sea.Tranquil as a dreamless sleep.Transient as the glance
Of flying sunbeams.Transparent as the soul of innocent youth.Tremble like a guilty thing surprised.True as the Stock-dove to her shallow nest
And to the grove that holds it.Twinkling … like a sullen star
Dimly reflected in a lonely pool.Undisturbed;
As on the pavement of a Gothic church
Walks a lone Monk, when service hath expired,
In peace and silence.Unfettered as bees that in gardens abide.In harmony united,
Like guests that meet, and some from far,
By cordial love invited.Troubles of this world are vain as billows in a tossing sea.Light as a sunbeam glides along the hills
She vanished.Vivid as a dream.A fall of voice,
Regretted like the nightingale’s last note.I wander’d lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills.Wanders like a gliding ghost.Warm as sunshine.Watchful as a wheeling eagle.Weak as a lamb the hour that it is yeaned.Welcome as a star.Wild and rude
As ever hue-and-cry pursued,
As ever ran a felon’s race.
