Chapter 12 of 19 · 3978 words · ~20 min read

Part 12

Like sheep from out the fold of the sky, stars leapt

Like ships that have gone down at sea

Like shy elves hiding from the traveler's eye

Like skeletons, the sycamores uplift their wasted hands

Like some grave night thought threading a dream

Like some new-gathered snowy hyacinth, so white and cold and delicate it was

Like some poor nigh-related guest, that may not rudely be dismist

Like some suppressed and hideous thought which flits athwart our musings, but can find no rest within a pure and gentle mind

Like some unshriven churchyard thing, the friar crawled

Like something fashioned in a dream

Like sounds of wind and flood

Like splendor-winged moths about a taper

Like stepping out on summer evenings from the glaring ball-room

upon the cool and still piazza

Like straws in a gust of wind

Like summer's beam and summer's stream

Like sunlight, in and out the leaves, the robins went

Like sweet thoughts in a dream

Like the awful shadow of some unseen power

Like the bellowing of bulls

Like the boar encircled by hunters and hounds

Like the bubbles on a river sparkling, bursting, borne away

Like the cold breath of the grave

Like the creaking of doors held stealthily ajar

Like the cry of an itinerant vendor in a quiet and picturesque town

Like the dance of some gay sunbeam

Like the dawn of the morn

Like the detestable and spidery araucaria [araucaria = evergreen trees of South America and Australia]

Like the dew on the mountain

Like the dim scent in violets

Like the drifting foam of a restless sea when the waves show their teeth in the flying breeze

Like the embodiment of a perfect rose, complete in form and fragrance

Like the faint cry of unassisted woe

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 had lips like pinks

She walked like a galley-slave

She walks in beauty like the night

She was as brilliant, and as hard too, as electric light

She was silent, standing before him like a little statuesque figure

Shining like the dewy star of dawn

Shivering pine-trees, like phantoms

Showy as damask-rose and shy as musk

Shrill as the loon's call

Shrivel like paper thrust into a flame

Shy as the squirrel

Sights seen as a traveling swallow might see them on the wing

Silence deep as death

Silence now is brooding like a gentle spirit o'er the still and pulseless world

Silence that seemed heavy and dark; like a passing cloud

Sinks clamorous like mill-waters at wild play

Sits like the maniac on his fancied throne

Skies as clear as babies' eyes

Sleek and thick and yellow as gold

Slender and thin as a slender wire

Slowly as a tortoise

Slowly as the finger of a clock, her shadow came

Slowly moved off and disappeared like shapes breathed on a mirror and melting away

Slowly, unnoted, like the creeping rust that spreads insidious, had estrangement come

Small as a grain of mustard seed

Smooth as a pond

Smooth as the pillar flashing in the sun

Snug as a bug in a rug

Soaring as swift as smoke from a volcano springs

So elusive that the memory of it afterwards was wont to come and go like a flash of light

So my spirit beat itself like a caged bird against its prison bars in vain

Soft as a zephyr

Soft as sleep the snow fell

Soft as Spring

Soft as the down of the turtle dove

Soft as the landscape of a dream

Soft as the south-wind

Soft in their color as gray pearls

Soft vibrations of verbal melody, like the sound of a golden bell rung far down under the humming waters

Some gleams of feeling pure and warm as sunshine on a sky of storm

Some like veiled ghosts hurrying past as though driven to their land of shadows by shuddering fear

Some minds are like an open fire--how direct and instant our communication with them

Something divine seemed to cling around her like some subtle vapor

Something resistant and inert, like the obstinate rolling over of a heavy sleeper after he has been called to get up

Something sharp and brilliant, like the glitter of a sword or a forked flash of lightning

Sorrowful eyes like those of wearied kine spent from the plowing [kine = cows]

Spread like wildfire

Squirrel-in-the-cage kind of movement

Stamping like a plowman to shuffle off the snow

Stared about like calves in a pen

Steadfast as the soul of truth

Steals lingering like a river smooth

Still as death

Stood like a wave-beaten rock

Straight as a ray of light

Straight as an arrow

Streamed like a meteor through the troubled air

Streamed o'er his memory like a forest flame

Streaming tears, like pearl drops from a flint

Striking with the force of an engine of destruction

Strong as a bison

Style comes, if at all, like the bloom upon fruit, or the glow of health upon the cheek

Subtle as jealousy

Sudden a thought came like a full-blown rose, flushing his brow

Sudden sprays of rain, like volleys of sharp arrows, rattled gustily against the windows

Suddenly, like death, the truth flashed on them

Sunbeams flashing on the face of things like sudden smilings of divine delight

Sunday mornings which seem to put on, like a Sabbath garment, an atmosphere of divine quietude

Supple and sweet as a rose in bloom

Sway like blown moths against the rosewhite flame

Sweet as a summer night without a breath

Sweet as music she spoke

Sweet as the rain at noon

Sweet as the smile of a fairy

Swift as a swallow heading south

Swift as lightning

Swift as the panther in triumph

Swifter than the twinkling of an eye

T

Talking and thinking became to him like the open page of a monthly magazine

Tall lance-like reeds wave sadly o'er his head

That like a wounded snake drags its slow length along

The anemone that weeps at day-break, like a silly girl before her lover

The army blazed and glowed in the golden sunlight like a mosaic of a hundred thousand jewels

The army like a witch's caldron seethed

The beating of her heart was like a drum

The beauty of her quiet life was like a rose in blowing

The billows burst like cannon down the coast

The birds swam the flood of air like tiny ships

The boat cuts its swift way through little waves like molten gold and opal

The boom of the surf grew ever less sonorous, like the thunder of a retreating storm

The breast-plate of righteousness

The breathless hours like phantoms stole away

The breeze is as a pleasant tune

The calm white brow as calm as earliest morn

The camp fire reddens like angry skies

The chambers of the house were haunted by an incessant echoing, like some dripping cavern

The church swarmed like a hive

The city is all in a turmoil; it boils like a pot of lentils

The clouds that move like spirits o'er the welkin clear [welkin = sky]

The clustered apples burnt like flame

The colored bulbs swung noon-like from tree and shrub

The crimson close of day

The curl'd moon was like a little feather

The curling wreaths like turbans seem

The dark hours are swept away like crumbling ashes

The dark mass of her hair shook round her like a sea

The dawn is rising from the sea, like a white lady from her bed

The dawn had whitened in the mist like a dead face

The dawn with silver-sandaled feet crept like a frightened girl.

The day stunned me like light upon some wizard way

The day was sweeter than honey and the honey-comb

The day have trampled me like armed men

The dead past flew away over the fens like a flight of wild swans

The deep like one black maelstrom round her whirls

The deepening east like a scarlet poppy burnt

The desolate rocky hills rolled like a solid wave along the horizon

The dome of heaven is like one drop of dew

The dreams of poets come like music heard at evening from the depth of some enchanted forest

The eagerness faded from his eyes, leaving them cold as a winter sky after sunset

The earth was like a frying-pan, or some such hissing matter

The eternal sea, which like a childless mother, still must croon her ancient sorrows to the cold white moon

The evening sky was as green as jade

The excitement had spread through the whole house, like a piquant and agreeable odor

The excitement of the thought buoyed his high-strung temperament like a tonic

The feathery meadows like a lilac sea

The firm body like a slope of snow

The first whiff of reality dissipated them like smoke

The floor, newly waxed, gleamed in the candle-light like beaten moonbeams

The fragrant clouds of hair, they flowed round him like a snare

The gathering glory of life shone like the dawn

The gesture was all strength and will, like the stretching of a sea-bird's wings

The girl's voice rang like a bird-call through his rustling fancies

The glimmer of tall flowers standing like pensive moon-worshipers in an ecstasy of prayerless bloom

The guides sniffed, like chamois, the air [chamois = extremely agile goat antelope]

The heavens are like a scroll unfurled

The hills across the valley were purple as thunder-clouds

The hoofs of the horses rang like the dumb cadence of an old saga

The hours crawled by like years

The hum of the camp sounds like the sea

The hurrying crowds of men gather like clouds

The ideas succeeded each other like a dynasty of kings

The impalpable presence of the new century rose like a vast empty house through which

no human feet had walked

The inexorable facts closed in on him like prison-warders hand-cuffing a convict

The lake glimmered as still as a mirror

The land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell

The land was like a dream

The level boughs, like bars of iron across the setting sun

The light of London flaring like a dreary dawn

The lights blazed up like day

The lilies were drooping, white, and wan, like the head and skin of a dying man

The mellowing hand of time

The melody rose tenderly and lingeringly like a haunting perfume of pressed flowers

The Milky Way lay like diamond-dust upon the robe of some great king

The monk's face whitened like sea-foam

The moon drowsed between the trees like a great yellow moth

The moon on the tower slept soft as snow

The moonbeams rest like a pale spotless shroud

The moonlight lay like snow

The moonlight, like a fairy mist, upon the mesa spreads

The mortal coldness of the soul, like death itself comes down

The mountain shadows mingling, lay like pools above the earth

The mountains loomed up dimly, like phantoms through the mist

The music almost died away, then it burst like a pent-up flood

The name that cuts into my soul like a knife

The nervous little train winding its way like a jointed reptile

The new ferns were spread upon the earth like some lacy coverlet

The night like a battle-broken host is driven before

The night yawned like a foul wind

The ocean swelled like an undulating mirror of the bowl of heaven

The old books look somewhat pathetically from the shelves, like aged dogs wondering why no one takes them for a walk

The old infamy will pop into daylight like a toad out of fissure in the rock

The penalty falls like a thunderbolt from heaven

The phrase was like a spear-thrust

The pine trees waved as waves a woman's hair

The place was like some enchanted town of palaces

The plains to northward change their color like the shimmering necks of doves

The poppy burned like a crimson ember

The prime of man has waxed like cedars

The public press would chatter and make odd ambiguous sounds like a shipload of monkeys in a storm

The purple heather rolls like dumb thunder

The rainbows flashed like fire