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Home  »  A Dictionary of Similes  »  Thomas Moore

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

Thomas Moore

Bland
As ocean-breezes gathered from the flowers
That blossom in Elysium.

Away, like mists that flee from summer sea.

Secluded bashful, like a shrine of love.

Blind as hooded falcons.

Blue
And beautiful, like skies seen through
The sleeping wave.

Breaking, like rosy clouds at even-tide
Around the rich pavilion of the sun.

Bright as Minerva’s yellow hair.

Calm as some lonely shepherd’s song.

But now a change came o’er my dream,
Like the magic lantern’s shifting slider.

Chaste as snow.

Danced, like wan ghosts about a funeral pyre.

Dies away,
Like relics of some faded strain, loved voices, lost for many a day.

I drank as earth imbibes the shower,
Or as the rainbow drinks the dew;
As ocean quaffs the oceans up
Or flushing sun inhales the sea.

Love’s secret may dwell,
Like Zephyr asleep in
Some rosy sea-shell.

Each bright eye,
Like violets after morning’s shower,
The brighter for the tears gone by.

Eyes, whose sleepy lid like snow on violets lies.

Fades like a funeral lay.

A faint strain,
As if some echo, that among
Those minstrel halls had slumber’d long,
Were murm’ring into life again.

Faintly as tolls the evening chime.

Fading fast as rainbows.

Flashed, like a sabre in the sun.

Fleet as zephyr’s pinion.

Flow, like the dews of the love-breathing night, from the warmth of the sun that has set.

Flushes, like some young Hebe’s lip.

Have ne’er by shame been taught to blush,
Like vernal roses in the sun flush.

Swiftly flew as glancing flame.

Free as the fetterless wind.

Fresh as light from a star just discovered.

Colors as gay as those on angels’ wings.

Glossy as a heron’s wing.

In youthful beauty glows,
Like Phœbus, when he bends to cast
His beams upon a rose.

Gone like a meteor.

Gone, like the thoughts that once were ours.

Happy as an enfranchised bird.

Haunts like a wild melody.

Laced,
Like an hour-glass, exceedingly small in the waist.

Light as the angel shapes that bless
An infant’s dream.

Light as the bridegrooms bound to their young loves.

Ling’ring now,
Like the last of the leaves left on Autumn’s sere and faded bow.

Lonely in her gloom as a pale Angel of the Grove.

Lorn as the hung-up lute, that ne’er hath spoken
Since the sad day its master-cord was broken!

Meek as the gentlest of those who in life’s sunny valley lie sheltered and warm.

Melting, like mist, away.

Bells, as musical
As those that, on the golden-shafted trees
Of Eden, shake in the eternal breeze.

Passed like a day-dream.

All gently pass away,
Like mists that flee
From a summer sea.

Passions, among pure thoughts hid,
Like serpents under flowerets sleeping.

Passion, like the sun at noon,
That burns o’er all he sees,
Awhile as warm, will set as soon—
Then, call it none of these.

Countless eyes,
Peeping like stars through the blue ev’ning’s skies.

Proud as waves that on the beach
Lay their war-crests down and die.

Pure as angel thoughts.

Pure as the young moon’s coronet.

Ready all,
As Echo, waiting for a call.

On Thee let my spirit rely—
Like some rude dial, that, fix’d on earth,
Still looks for its light from the sky.

Resplendent as the summer noon.

Shine,
Like golden ingots from a fairy mine.

Shine like Nereïd’s hair.

Shrinking as violets do in summer ray.

Sighing … like a tomb-searcher.

Sings, like an inspired young Sibyl.

Up, like a kite made of foolscap, it shall soar, with a long tail of rubbish behind, to the skies.

Soft as in moments of bliss long ago.

Soft as lightning in May.

A faint strain,
As if some echo, that among
Those minstrel halls had slumber’d long,
Were murm’ring into life again.

Nothing half so sweet in life as Love’s young dream.

Swelling on
Like the waves of eternity.

True as stars.

True as the lute, that no sighing wakens.

Warm and meek,
Like curls upon a rosy cheek.

Wild as mountain-breezes.

Yawning, like some old crater rent anew.