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

Aubrey De Vere

Black as if lightning-scarred or curst of God.

Blind as the blindworm.

Waters blue as violet banks.

Bright as Apollo’s breastplate.

Bright as May-day’s morn.

Bright as the pastures of the sun.

Shone as bright as sea-foam sparkling on a moonlit night.

Like shallow ice-films ’neath a courser’s hoof, burst.

Cold as the clod.

Countless as the stars that roof our night.

Dark and cold, like a benighted hemisphere.

Dark as a fiend.

Dolorous, like some starved shape that cowers in charnel crypt.

Dropped as dead.

Her eyes grew bright and large,
Like springs rain-fed that dilate their marge.

Her eyes, like stars in midnight waters glossed.

Flushed … like a rose.

Happy as Spirits cleansed.

Hissed like a forked serpent.

Murmured like a whispering priest.

Murmur like the gales of spring.

Voices musical as birds or brooks.

Pure … like aureole round the forehead of a saint.

Quivers like the tail of swine gladdened by a corn feast.

Like the mother of some victor chief rejoices.

Remote, like echoed voice of one the tombs among.

Roared like breakers in the night.

Shine out like the spine of a frosty hill in the wintry sun.

Shine out like flowering meads in spring.

Shunned like base praise and hireling’s mart.

Silent as a saint.

Steadfast, as the throne of God.

Sweet as some immeasurable rose, expanding leaf on leaf.

Swift as dead leaves by tempest borne.

Throbbed like some branch against some river swift.

Towering, like the keel-compelling sail that takes the topmost tempest.

Trembling like a bridal veil.

Unbounded, like infinity.

Veiled like noontide stars.

Voice, as pure and sweet as if from heaven.

Wailing like a midnight wind.

Warm as mead by May breezes fanned.

White as an infant’s spirit.

Wild as the lightning.

Wild as the waves.