William Cullen Bryant Similes. Frank J. Wilstach, comp. 1916. A Dictionary of Similes

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CONTENTS · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

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

William Cullen Bryant


Ancient as the sun.	1
Beautiful as ever looked From white clouds in a dream.	2
Clinging … as friend with friend, or husband with wife, Makes hand in hand the passage of life.	3
Differ as an octave flute and a tavern gong.	4
Fair as the hills of Paradise.	5
Fickle as the sea.	6
Fierce as the shout of victory.	7
Fling … as a bird flings o’er his shivering plumes the fountain’s spray.	8
Seasons flit before the mind as flit the snow-flakes in a winter storm, seen rather than distinguished.	9
Flittering here and there, like sunshine in the uneasy ocean-waves.	10
Floating downward in airy play, Like spangles dropped from the glistening crowd That whiten by night the milky way.	11
Glimmer like a star in autumn’s hazy night.	12
Glowing in the green, like flakes of fire.	13
Gorgeous as are a rivulet’s banks in June.	14
Heaped like a host in battle overthrown.	15
Howling, like a wolf, flies the famished northern blast.	16
Light as the whispers of a dream.	17
The soft memory of her virtues … lingers like twilight hues.	18
Modest and shy as a nun.	19
As shadows cast by cloud and sun flit o’er the summer grass, So, in thy sight, Almighty One! earth’s generations pass.	20
Perish, as the quickening breath of God … is withdrawn.	21
Return, like a late summer when the year grows old.	22
Rigid as the will of Fate.	23
Round and round they flew, As when, in spring, about a chimney-top, A cloud of twittering swallows, just returned, Wheel round and round, and turn and wheel again, Unwinding their swift track.	24
Sparkle like brooks in the morning sun.	25
Sparkling like snow-wreaths in the early sun.	26
Branches stream like the dishevelled hair Of women in the sadness of despair.	27
Sweep, like currents journeying through the windless deep.	28
Swept … like leaves before the autumn gale.	29
Swept … like ocean-tides uprising at the call of tyrant winds.	30
Sweet, as when winter storms have ceased to chide.	31
Tenderly, as round the sleeping infant’s feet, We softly fold the cradle-sheet.	32
Voice like the music of rills.	33
Thy pleasant youth, a little while withdrawn, Waits on the horizon of a brighter sky; Waits, like the morn, that folds her wings and hides Till the slow stars bring back her dawning hour; Waits, like the vanished spring, that slumbering bides Her own sweet time to waken bud and flower.	34
Wandering as the wind.	35
Waste … like April snow in the warm noon.	36

CONTENTS · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

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