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

Dear

Dear as the land to shipwrecked mariner.
—Æschylus

Dear as her mother holds her infant’s grave.
—Bogart

Dear as the nurtured thrill of joy.
—Robert Burns

Dear—as his native song to Exile’s ears.
—Lord Byron

Dear as fairy fable.
—Madison Cawein

Dear as liberty.
—Cicero

Dear as the soul o’er thy memory sobbing.
—James G. Clark

Dear as freedom is.
—William Cowper

Dear as a child’s curling fingers.
—Olive Tilford Dargan

As dear as to the lover the smile of a gentle maid.
—Bartholomew Dowling

Dear, as the apple to thine eye.
—Timothy Dwight

As dear to me as my own right hand.
—Sir William Schwenk Gilbert

Dear, as the light that visits these sad eyes;
Dear, as the ruddy drops that warm my heart.
—Thomas Gray

Dear as his eyeball.
—Thomas Heywood

Dear as these mine eyes.
—Christopher Marlowe

Dear as light.
—Hannah More

Dear as the vital stream that feeds my heart.
—Hannah More

Dear as the vital warmth that feeds my life.
—Thomas Otway

Dear as my finger.
—William Shakespeare

As dear to me as life itself.
—William Shakespeare

Dearer than eye-sight, space, and liberty.
—William Shakespeare

Dear
As human heart to human heart may be.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley

As dear to me as are the ruddy drops
That visit my sad heart.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley

Dear as remember’d kisses after death.
—Alfred Tennyson

Dear as the visions of the promised bride lighted by love.
—C. P. Wilson