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

Speed

Sped, like a phantom.
—P. D. Gray

Sped like meteors through the sky.
—Lord Byron

Like a shaft dismissed I sped away.
—Richard Garnett

Speeding … like an arrow.
—Thomas Hardy

Sped like plagues and pestilences.
—Robert Jephson

Speeds from the earth like a bird on the wing.
—William Knox

He sped as speeds the wind.
—Lewis Morris

Speed, like yellow leaves before the gale
When Autumn winds are strongest.
—Thomas L. Peacock

Speeds like the horseman who travels in haste.
—Thomas Pringle

As a swallow chases the summer, we sped.
—T. Buchanan Read

Sped, like some swift cloud that wings the wide air’s wilderness.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley