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

Walter Savage Landor

Buzz’d like bees
Fretting and swarming in the linden-trees.

Changeful as the neck of dove
In colour.

Ran clear as the light of heaven ere autumn closed.

Clings about thee close, like moss to stones.

Confining it to such limits as paintings are confined in by their frames.

The eyes of critics, whether in commending or carping, are both on one side, like a turbot’s.

Dark as Saint Bartholomew.

Darts on like a greyhound whelp after a leveret.

As much difference as between an organ and a bagpipe.

Dry as the leaves in winter.

Fits the present purpose like a ring to your finger.

Broad and glaring as the eye of the Cyclops.

Irresolute as Adriadne when she was urged to fly.

Lean as a backgammon board.

Loose as eggs in a nest.

Merry as larks.

Pale as Orithyia when she was borne away.

Little troubles pass like little ripples in a sunny river.

Poems, like rivers, convey to their destination what must without their appliances be unhandled: these to ports and arsenals, this to the human heart.

Wisdom and poetry are like fruit for children, unwholesome if too fresh.

Political men, like goats, usually thrive best among equalities.

Rave like a fury.

The nerves of Power
Sink, as a lute’s in rain.

Stiff as coat of mail.

Thrashed him like a wheat-sheaf.

True as the magnet is to iron.

Clear writers, like clear fountains, do not seem so deep as they are; the turbid looks most profound.

Youth, like the aloe, blossoms but once, and its flower springs from the midst of thorns: but see with what strength and to what height the aloe-flower rises over them.

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