Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases, Grenville Kleiser [learn to read books TXT] 📗

id="id09835">Like the faint exquisite music of a dream

Like the fair flower dishevel'd in the wind

Like the fair sun, when in his fresh array he cheers the morn, and all the earth revealeth

Like the falling thud of the blade of a murderous ax

Like the fierce fiend of a distempered dream

Like the fitting of an old glove to a hand

Like the foam on the river

Like the great thunder sounding

Like the jangling of all the strings of some musical instrument

Like the jewels that gleam in baby eyes

Like the kiss of maiden love the breeze is sweet and bland

Like the long wandering love, the weary heart may faint for rest

Like the moon in water seen by night

Like the music in the patter of small feet

Like the prodigal whom wealth softens into imbecility

Like the quivering image of a landscape in a flowing stream

Like the rainbow, thou didst fade

Like the rustling of grain moved by the west-wind

Like the sap that turns to nectar, in the velvet of the peach

Like the sea whose waves are set in motion by the winds

Like the sea-worm, that perforates the shell of the mussel, which straightway closes the wound with a pearl

Like the setting of a tropical sun

Like the shadow of a great hill that reaches far out over the plain

Like the shadows of the stars in the upheaved sea

Like the shudder of a doomed soul

Like the silver gleam when the poplar trees rustle their pale leaves listlessly

Like the soft light of an autumnal day

Like the Spring-time, fresh and green

Like the stern-lights of a ship at sea, illuminating only the path which has been passed over

Like the sudden impulse of a madman

Like the swell of Summer's ocean

Like the tattered effigy in a cornfield

Like the vase in which roses have once been distill'd

Like the visits of angels, short and far between

Like the whole sky when to the east the morning doth return

Like thistles of the wilderness, fit neither for food nor fuel

Like those great rivers, whose course everyone beholds, but their springs have been seen by but few

Like thoughts whose very sweetness yielded proof that they were born for immortality

Like to diamonds her white teeth shone between the parted lips

Like torrents from a mountain source, we rushed into each other's arms

Like troops of ghosts on the dry wind past

Like two doves with silvery wings, let our souls fly

Like two flaming stars were his eyes

Like vaporous shapes half seen

Like village curs that bark when their fellows do

Like wasted hours of youth

Like winds that bear sweet music, when they breathe through some dim latticed chamber

Like wine-stain to a flask the old distrust still clings

Like winged stars the fire-flies flash and glance

Like young lovers whom youth and love make dear

Lingering like an unloved guest

Lithe as a panther

Little white hands like pearls

Lofty as a queen

Loneliness struck him like a blow

Looked back with faithful eyes like a great mastiff to his master's face

Looking as sulky as the weather itself

Looking like a snarling beast baulked of its prey [baulked = checked, thwarted]

Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed

Lost like the lightning in the sullen clod

Love as clean as starlight

Love brilliant as the morning

Love had like the canker-worm consumed her early prime

Love is a changing lord as the light on a turning sword

Love like a child around the world doth run

Love like a miser in the dark his joys would hide

Love shakes like a windy reed your heart

Love smiled like an unclouded sun

Love that sings and has wings as a bird

Lovely as starry water

Lovely the land unknown and like a river flowing

M

March on my soul nor like the laggard stay

Me on whose heart as a worm she trod

Meaningless as the syllables of an unknown tongue

Men moved hither and thither like insects in their crevices

Mentality as hard as bronze

Mentally round-shouldered and decrepit

Merge imperceptibly into one another like the hues of the prism

Meteors that dart like screaming birds

Milk-white pavements, clear and richly pale, like alabaster

More variegated than the skin of a serpent

Motion like the spirit of that wind whose soft step deepens slumber

Motionless as a plumb line

Mountains like frozen wrinkles on a sea

Moving in the same dull round, like blind horses in a mill

Mute as an iceberg

My age is as a lusty Winter

My body broken as a turning wheel

My breath to Heaven like vapor goes

My head was like a great bronze bell with one thought for the clapper

My heart is as some famine-murdered land

My heart is like a full sponge and must weep a little

My heart like a bird doth hover

My heart will be as wind fainting in hot grass

My life floweth away like a river

My life was white as driven snow

My love for thee is like the sovereign moon that rules the sea

My love's like the steadfast sun

My lungs began to crow like chanticleer [chanticleer = rooster]

My mind swayed idly like a water-lily in a lake

My muscles are as steel

My skin is as sallow as gold

My soul was as a lampless sea

My spirit seemed to beat the void, like the bird from out the ark

My thoughts came yapping and growling round me like a pack of curs

My thoughts ran leaping through the green ways of my mind like fawns at play

N

Night falls like fire

No longer shall slander's venomed spite crawl like a snake across his perfect name

Now every nerve in my body seemed like a strained harp-string ready to snap at a touch

Now like a wild nymph she veils her shadowy form

Now like a wild rose in the fields of heaven slipt forth the slender figure of the Dawn

Now memory and emotion surged in my soul like a tempest

Now thou seemest like a bankrupt beau, stripped of his gaudy hues

O

Obscured with wrath as is the sun with cloud

Odorous as all Arabia

Often enough life tosses like a fretful stream among rocky boulders

Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud

Old as the evening star

Old happy hours that have long folded their wings

Once again, like madness, the black shapes of doubt swing through his brain

One bleared star, faint glimmering like a bee

One bright drop is like the gem that decks a monarch's crown

One by one flitting like a mournful bird

One deep roar as of a cloven world

One winged cloud above like a spread dragon overhangs the west

Oppressed by the indefiniteness which hung in her mind, like a thick summer haze

Or shedding radiance like the smiles of God

Our enemies were broken like a dam of river reeds

Our hearts bowed down like violets after rain

Our sail like a dew-lit blossom shone

Overhead the intense blue of the noonday sky burst like a jewel in the sun

P

Pale and grave as a sculptured nun

Pale as a drifting blossom

Passed like a phantom into the shadows

Passive and tractable as a child

Peaceful as a village cricket-green on Sunday

Peevish and impatient, like some ill-trained man who is sick

Perished utterly, like a blown-out flame

Philosophy evolved itself, like a vast spider's loom

Pillowed upon its alabaster arms like to a child o'erwearied with sweet toil

Polished as the bosom of a star

Poured his heart out like the rending sea in passionate wave on wave

Pouting like the snowy buds o' roses in July

Presently she hovered like a fluttering leaf or flake of snow

Pride and self-disgust served her like first-aid surgeons on the battlefield

Proud as the proudest of church dignitaries

Pure as a wild-flower

Pure as the azure above them

Pure as the naked heavens

Pure as the snowy leaves that fold over the flower's heart

Purple, crimson, and scarlet, like the curtains of God's tabernacle

Put on gravity like a robe

Q

Quaking and quivering like a short-haired puppy after a ducking

Questions and answers sounding like a continuous popping of corks

Quiet as a nun's face

Quietly as a cloud he stole

Quietude which seemed to him beautiful as clear depths of water

Quivering like an eager race-horse to start

R

Rage, rage ye tears, that never more should creep like hounds about God's footstool

Ran like a young fawn

Rattle in the ear like a flourish of trumpets

Rays springing from the east like golden arrows

Red as the print of a kiss might be

Redolent with the homely scent of old-fashioned herbs and flowers

Reflected each in the other like stars in a lake

Refreshed like dusty grass after a shower

Refreshing as descending rains to sunburnt climes

Remote as the hidden star

Restless as a blue-bottle fly on a warm summer's day

Revealed his doings like those of bees in a glass hive

Rich as the dawn

Ride like the wind through the night

Rivers that like silver threads ran through the green and gold of pasture lands

Roared like mountain torrents

Rolling it under the tongue as a sweet morsel

Round my chair the children run like little things of dancing gold

Ruddy as sunrise

Ruddy his face as the morning light

Ruffling out his cravat with a crackle of starch, like a turkey when it spreads its feathers

Running to and fro like frightened sheep

Rushing and hurrying about like a June-bug

S

Sanctuaries where the passions may, like wild falcons, cover their faces with their wings

Sayings that stir the blood like the sound of a trumpet

Scattered love as stars do light

Sea-gulls flying like flakes of the sea

Sentences level and straight like a hurled lance

Shadowy faces, known in dreams, pass as petals upon a stream

Shake like an aspen leaf

Shaken off like a nightmare

Shapeless as a sack of wool

Shattered like so much glass

She brightened like a child whose broken toy is glued together

She could summon tears as one summons servants

She danced like a flower in the wind

She disclaimed the weariness that dragged upon her spirits like leaden weights

She exuded a faint and intoxicating perfume of womanliness, like a crushed herb

She felt like an unrepentant criminal

She fled like a spirit from the room

She flounders like a huge conger-eel in an ocean of dingy morality

She gave him a surprised look, like a child catching an older person in a foolish statement

She gave off antipathies as a liquid gives off vapor

She has great eyes like the doe

She heard him like one in a dream

She let the soft waves of her deep hair fall like flowers from Paradise

She looked like a tall golden candle

She looked like the picture of a young rapt saint, lost in heavenly musing

She moved like mirth incarnate

She nestles like a dove

She played with a hundred possibilities fitfully and discursively as a musician runs his fingers over a key-board

She played with grave cabinets as a cat plays with a mouse

She saw this planet like a star hung in the glistening depths of even

She seemed as happy as a wave that dances on the sea

She shall be sportive as the fawn

She stood silent a moment, dropping before him like a broken branch

She that passed