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Frank J. Wilstach, comp.  A Dictionary of Similes.  1916.
 
Eye
 
  My eyes like the wheels of a chariot roll around.
            —Æschylus (E. B. Browning)		  1
  Her eyes were like a butterfly’s gorgeous wings.
            —James Lane Allen		  2
  Eyes like mountain water that’s flowing on a rock.
            —William Allingham		  3
  Dovelike eyes, depths as of heaven when charged with gloom.
            —Anonymous		  4
  Eyes like burnt holes in a blanket.
            —Anonymous		  5
  Eyes like saucers.
            —Anonymous		  6
  Eyes transparent as a cloudless sky.
            —Anonymous		  7
  Eyes, brilliant and humid like the reflection of stars in a well.
            —Edmondo de Amicis		  8
  Languishing eyes like those of a roe looking tenderly at her young.
            —Amriolkais		  9
  Eyes like a hind’s in love-time.
            —Edwin Arnold		  10
Her sparkling eyes, like Orient pearles,
Did cast a heavenlye light.
            —English Ballad		  11
  His eyes, like those of a pitiless judge, seemed to go to the very bottom of all questions, to read all natures, all feelings and thoughts.
            —Honoré de Balzac		  12
  Burning eyes that blaze through a lace veil, like flame through cannon smoke.
            —Honoré de Balzac		  13
  These lovely lamps, these windows of the soul.
            —Seigneur du Bartas		  14
  Eyes like flames of sulphur.
            —Beaumont and Fletcher		  15
  Eyes, like torches, fling their beams around.
            —Beaumont and Fletcher		  16
  Blue violet, like Pandora’s eye.
            —Thomas L. Beddoes		  17
  Eyes glazed over like harebells wet with dew.
            —Caroline Bowles		  18
Her eyes are bright as stars
In the blue.
            —Robert Bridges (American)		  19
  Her sunken grey eyes, like reflections from the aspect of an angel.
            —Charlotte Brontë		  20
          Her eyes are dark and humid,
Like the depth on depth of lustre hid i’ the harebell.
            —Robert Browning		  21
With eyes, like fresh-blown thrush-eggs on a thread,
Faint-blue and loosely floating in his head.
            —Robert Browning		  22
                Doubting eyes,
Like a child that never knew but love  Whom words of wrath surprise.
            —Elizabeth Barrett Browning		  23
  Shining eyes, like antique jewels set in Parian statue-stone.
            —Elizabeth Barrett Browning		  24
  Eyes like the summer’s light blue sky.
            —Edward Bulwer-Lytton		  25
  Beautiful eyes in the face of a handsome woman are like eloquence to speech.
            —Edward Bulwer-Lytton		  26
  His eyes are like a balance, apt to propend each way, and to be weighed down with every wench’s looks.
            —Robert Burton		  27
  Eyes like the dawn of day.
            —Frances Anne Butler		  28
  Brilliant eyes, swift-darting as the stars.
            —Thomas Carlyle		  29
  Twin violets by a shady brook were like her eyes.
            —Alice Cary		  30
  Eyes, shining like thin skins full of blood.
            —Alice Cary		  31
  What a curious workmanship is that of the eye, which is in the body, as the sun in the world; set in the head as in a watch-tower, having the softest nerves for receiving the greater multitude of spirits necessary for the act of vision.
            —Stephen Charnock		  32
  Those dry eyes of his shining more like poisoned stones than living tissue.
            —Joseph Conrad		  33
  Expectant yellow eyes, like a cat watching the preparation of a saucer of milk.
            —Joseph Conrad		  34
  Her eyes are sapphires set in snow.
            —Henry Constable		  35
  An eye like the polar star.
            —Eliza Cook		  36
O my love has an eye,  Like a star in the sky.
            —Barry Cornwall		  37
  Honest eyes … Blue like the tropic skies.
            —Gabriel D’Annunzio		  38
  Eyes, gleaming and sparkling like lizards’ eyes in the crevices of old walls.
            —Alphonse Daudet		  39
      Her eyes grew bright and large,
Like springs rain-fed that dilate their marge.
            —Aubrey De Vere		  40
  Her eyes, like stars in midnight waters glossed.
            —Aubrey De Vere		  41
  Her eyes are bright as beryl stones that in the tankard wink.
            —Austin Dobson		  42
  Eyes like the morning.
            —Austin Dobson		  43
  Eyes like live coals.
            —Alexandre Dumas, père		  44
  Her eyes like shadows in the light of torches on the Mount of Doom.
            —Maurice Francis Egan		  45
  Old men’s eyes are like old men’s memories, they are strongest for things a long way off.
            —George Eliot		  46
  When a man speaks the truth in the spirit of truth, his eye is as clear as the heavens. When he has base ends, and speaks falsely, the eye is muddy, and sometimes asquint.
            —Ralph Waldo Emerson		  47
  An eye can threaten like a loaded and levelled gun, or can insult like hissing or kicking; or, in its altered mood, by beams of kindness, it can make the heart dance with joy.
            —Ralph Waldo Emerson		  48
But oh, to see his solar eyes
Like meteors which chose their way
And rived the dark like a new day.
            —Ralph Waldo Emerson		  49
  Her eyes like the radiance the sunbeams bring.
            —Ancient Erse		  50
  Eyes like the summer skies when twin stars beam above.
            —Francis A. Fahy		  51
  Eyes as azure as the wave.
            —Violet Fane		  52
  Eyes like dark blue pansies.
            —Norman Gale		  53
  Eyes as greye as glasse.
            —George Gascoigne		  54
  A burning eye, yellow and phosphoric like the eye of a crocodile or a lion.
            —Théphile Gautier		  55
  The most dazzling stars are pebbles without lustre beside the diamonds of her eyes.
            —Joseph A. de Gobineau		  56
  His eyes were like the eyes of doves when washed by the dews of the morning.
            —Oliver Goldsmith		  57
Mary with her cheerful eyes,
Like heartsease where a dew drop lies.
            —Edmund Gosse		  58
  Azure eyes, like stars upon the river’s brink.
            —Edmund Gosse		  59
Her eyes, fair eyes, like to the purest lights,
That animate the sun, or cheer the day;
In whom the shining sunbeams brightly play,
Whiles fancy doth on them divine delights.
            —Robert Greene		  60
  Her eyes two twinkling stars in winter nights.
            —Robert Greene		  61
  Her eyes like glassy streams.
            —Robert Greene		  62
The dame had eyes like lightning, or the flash
That runs before the hot report of thunder.
            —Robert Greene		  63
                Two eyes,
Like heaven’s bright lamps in matchless beauty shining.
            —Robert Greene		  64
His eyes were grey,
Like Titan in a Summer day.
            —Robert Greene		  65
  Eyes like violets steep’d in dew.
            —J. C. Guthrie		  66
  Her eyes, like moonbeams glowing.
            —Shraz Hfiz		  67
  Eyes that mock the diamond’s blaze.
            —John Harrington		  68
  Eyes like twin blue stars.
            —Heinrich Heine		  69
  Ambiguous … blue eyes like the china dog on the mantel piece.
            —O. Henry		  70
  Eyes frosty blue, like a winter sea that is made bright, not warm, by the sun.
            —Maurice Hewlett		  71
  Eyes like a hare’s, that look sideways for danger.
            —Maurice Hewlett		  72
  Eyes like stars, robed in dull red.
            —Maurice Hewlett		  73
  Shrewd old party … eyes like gimlets.
            —Headon Hill		  74
  The lack-lustre eye, rayless as a Beacon street door-plate in August.
            —Oliver Wendell Holmes		  75
  An eye as clear and steady as the evening star.
            —Oliver Wendell Holmes		  76
  Eyes … mild as a gazelle’s.
            —Thomas Hood		  77
            Brilliant eyes,
As deeply dark as desert skies.
            —Laurence Hope		  78
Dreaming, wistful eyes,
Dark and deep as mysterious skies,
Seen from a vessel at sea.
            —Laurence Hope		  79
                Wistful eyes,
As luminous and tender as Kotri’s twilight spies.
            —Laurence Hope		  80
His eyes … deep sunk beneath his lowering brows,
Like caverns by a moonlit sea.
            —Richard Monckton Milnes		  81
  Eyes … overflow like two cups filled above the brim.
            —Victor Hugo		  82
  Sweet eyes … tender as the deeps in yonder skies.
            —Jean Ingelow		  83
                The sophist’s eye,
Like a sharp spear, went through her utterly,
Keen, cruel, perceant, stinging.
            —John Keats		  84
  Eyes like two streams of liquid light.
            —Frances Anne Kemble		  85
  Eyes like the dawn of day.
            —Frances Anne Kemble		  86
                Her eye
Flames like a fresh caught hind’s.
            —Charles Kingsley		  87
  Eyes that droop like summer flowers.
            —Letitia Elizabeth Landon		  88
  Eyes like the flower that was Rousseau’s delight.
            —Andrew Lang		  89
            O lovely eyes of azure,
Clear as the waters of a brook that run
Limpid and laughing in the summer sun!
            —Henry W. Longfellow		  90
  I dislike an eye that twinkles like a star. Those only are beautiful which, like the planets, have a steady, lambent light—are luminous, but not sparkling.
            —Henry W. Longfellow		  91
  Eyes dilated, as if the spirit-world were open before him, and some beauteous vision were standing there.
            —Henry W. Longfellow		  92
Like the stars that nightly shine,
Thy sweet eyes shed light divine.
            —Samuel Lover		  93
  Flaw-seeing eyes, like needle points.
            —James Russell Lowell		  94
  Eyes pe[a]rcing like the Sun beames.
            —John Lyly		  95
  Blue eyes, like Delft saucers.
            —Maarten Maartens		  96
  His eyes like meteors of night.
            —James Macpherson		  97
                Bright eyes
Which were like lotus-blossoms.
            —Mahabharata		  98
  Eyes … like restless stars in the pit of night.
            —Edwin Markham		  99
  Vacant eyes, blue as the flowers of the flax plant.
            —Guy de Maupassant		  100
  Unfathomable eyes, which hid their secrets under the undisturbed serenity of majestic repose, like a mountain lake, whose waters seem black on account of their depth.
            —Guy de Maupassant		  101
Her eye beams as kindly and bright,
As the sun in the azure-tinged sky.
            —Catulle Mendès		  102
Blessed eyes, like a pair of suns,
Shine in the sphere of smiling.
            —Thomas Middleton		  103
  And the bright dew-bead on the bramble lies, like liquid upon beauty’s eyes.
            —James Montgomery		  104
  Eyes like setting planets, weak and dim.
            —Charles L. Moore		  105
                Each bright eye,
Like violets after morning’s shower,
The brighter for the tears gone by.
            —Thomas Moore		  106
  Eyes, whose sleepy lid like snow on violets lies.
            —Thomas Moore		  107
  Eyes as soft as doves.
            —Dinah Maria Mulock		  108
  Eyes, like reflected moonbeams on a distant lake.
            —Ossian		  109
  Eyes flashed like the sun playing on water.
            —Ouida		  110
  Eyes like blue heavens in a night of frost.
            —Ouida		  111
  Eyes shining like the planets.
            —Ouida		  112
  Her eyes were of a deep brown hue, like the velvety brown of a stag’s throat.
            —Ouida		  113
  Her eyes are like free-booters, living upon the spoile of stragglers.
            —Sir Thomas Overbury		  114
            Eyes like an orange-grove
In whose enchanted bowers the magic fire-flies rove.
            —Sir Thomas Overbury		  115
  What eyes! [Daniel Webster’s] like charcoal fire in the bottom of a deep, dark well.
            —Theodore Parker		  116
  Eyes blazed like a bale-fire.
            —John Payne		  117
  Her black eyes sparkled like sunbeams on a river: a clear, deep, liquid radiance, the reflection of ethereal fire.
            —Thomas L. Peacock		  118
  Eyes … stared like windows at the peep of day.
            —Stephen Phillips		  119
  The eye, like a shattered mirror, multiplies the images of its sorrow.
            —Edgar Allan Poe		  120
                Luminous eyes,
Brightly expressive as the twins of Leda.
            —Edgar Allan Poe		  121
  The eye is the window of the soul; the mouth, the door; the intellect, the will, are seen in the eye.
            —Hiram Powers		  122
  The eyes are the pioneers that first announce the soft tale of love.
            —Propertius		  123
  Eyes glittering like basilisks.
            —Charles Reade		  124
  Her eye worked like an ice gimlet in her daughter’s face.
            —Charles Reade		  125
  Her eyes are blue and dewy as the glimmering Summer-dawn.
            —James Whitcomb Riley		  126
  Eyes as fresh and clear as morning skies.
            —James Whitcomb Riley		  127
  With a pair o’ eyes like two fried eggs.
            —James Whitcomb Riley		  128
Her eyes are like the open heaven
Holy and pure from sin.
            —Christina Georgina Rossetti		  129
  Dim dried eyes like an exhausted well.
            —Christina Georgina Rossetti		  130
                Eyes
As of the sky and sea on a gray day.
            —Dante Gabriel Rossetti		  131
Her eyes were deeper than the depth
Of waters stilled at even.
            —Dante Gabriel Rossetti		  132
                Her dazzling eye;
As liquid in its brilliancy as the deep blue of midnight ocean,
When underneath, with trembling motion,
The phosphor light floats by.
            —John Ruskin		  133
  Her eyes were like a heaven, where sunlight always glows.
            —A. J. Ryan		  134
  His eyes like those that Houris wear.
            —Sadi		  135
                Thine eyes
Mirage of sultry prisons, flashing in—
And out, like fulg’rous lightning through dark skies.
            —Francis S. Saltus		  136
As a moonbeam white,
As a starbeam white,
Was her eye of iris ray.
            —Francis S. Saltus		  137
  An eye, like Mars, to threaten and command.
            —William Shakespeare		  138
Her eyes, as murder’d with the view,
Like stars ashamed of day, themselves withdrew.
            —William Shakespeare		  139
            Thy eyes’ windows fall,
Like death, when he shuts up the day of life.
            —William Shakespeare		  140
                His eye
Red as ’twould burn Rome.
            —William Shakespeare		  141
  His eyes, like glow-worms, shine when he doth fret.
            —William Shakespeare		  142
Her eyes, like marigolds, had sheath’d their light,
And canopied in darkness sweetly lay,
Till they might open to adorn the day.
            —William Shakespeare		  143
                Eyes as fair
As star-beams among the twilight trees.
            —Percy Bysshe Shelley		  144
                His faint eyes,
Like dew upon a sleeping flower.
            —Percy Bysshe Shelley		  145
  Thine eyes are like the deep, blue boundless heaven.
            —Percy Bysshe Shelley		  146
  Eyes like kindling flame.
            —Lydia Huntley Sigourney		  147
In her hazel eyes her thoughts lay clear
As pebbles in a brook.
            —Alexander Smith		  148
  Her goodly eyes like sapphires shining bright.
            —Edmund Spenser		  149
  An eye is, for all the world, exactly like a cannon, in this respect, That it is not so much the eye or the cannon, in themselves, as it is the carriage of the eye, and the carriage of the cannon; by which both the one and the other are enabled to do so much execution.
            —Laurence Sterne		  150
An old light smolders in her eye
There! she looks up. They grow and glow
Like mad laughs or a rhapsody
That flickers out in woe.
            —Trumbull Stickney		  151
  Eyes as glad as summer.
            —Algernon Charles Swinburne		  152
Gold-eyed as the shore-flower shelterless
Whereon the sharp-breathed sea blows bitterness,
A storm-star that the seafarers of love
Strain their wind-wearied eyes for glimpses of.
            —Algernon Charles Swinburne		  153
Your grave majestic eyes
Like a bird’s warbled words
Speak, and sorrow dies.
            —Algernon Charles Swinburne		  154
        Eyes,
Pale as the skies.
            —Arthur Symons		  155
His threatening eyes
Like flaming torches burned.
            —Torquato Tasso		  156
  Eyes … clear as the unshadowed Grecian heaven.
            —Bayard Taylor		  157
Like a blue spot in the sky
Was her clear and loving eye.
            —Sir Henry Taylor		  158
  Eyes like heaven’s own blue.
            —Esaias Tegner		  159
  His eyes are like the eyelids of the morning.
            —Old Testament		  160
  Thine eyes are like the fish-pools in Heshbon, by the gate of Bathrabbim.
            —Old Testament		  161
  Eyes like unto a flame of fire.
            —Old Testament		  162
But woe’s me, and woe’s me,
For the secrets of her eyes!
In my visions fearfully
They are ever shown to be
As fringèd pools, whereof each lies
Pallid—dark beneath the skies
Of a night that is
But one blear necropolis
And her eyes a little tremble, in the wind of her own sighs.
            —Francis Thompson		  163
  Like pansies dark i’ the June o’ the year, grow my Love’s glad eyes.
            —James Thomson		  164
  Her eyes are like the statues,—mild, grave, and wide.
            —Paul Verlaine		  165
  Eyes, dark and mysterious as Night’s; but, like Night’s own eyes, ready, I thought, to call up the throbbing fires of a million stars.
            —Theodore Watts-Dunton		  166
  Eyes flashing like sapphires.
            —Theodore Watts-Dunton		  167
Eyes like English skies, where seemed to play
Deep azure dreams behind the tender grey.
            —Theodore Watts-Dunton		  168
                O deep eyes,
Darker and softer than the bluest dusk
Of August violets, darker and deeper
Like crystal fathomless lakes in summer moons.
            —Augusta Webster		  169
How brilliant and mirthful the light of her eye,
Like a star glancing out from the blue of the sky.
            —John Greenleaf Whittier		  170
  Eyes like a bright blue-bell.
            —Ella Wheeler Wilcox		  171
  Your eyes are like fantastic moons that shiver in some stagnant lake.
            —Oscar Wilde		  172
  Eyes half veiled …
Like bluest waters seen, through mists of rain.
            —Oscar Wilde		  173
Blue eyes shimmer with angel glances
Like spring violets over the sea.
            —Constance F. Woolson		  174
  Her eyes as stars of twilight fair.
            —William Wordsworth		  175
                Eyes
Like the harebells bathed in dew.
            —William Wordsworth		  176
  Eyes like sunbeams.
            —Johann Zschokke		  177
 
 
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