and down in the dust he fell like a lithe black poplar
shot up tall and strong in the spreading marshy flats,
the trunk trimmed but its head a shock of branches.
A chariot-maker fells it with shining iron ax
as timber to bend for handsome chariot wheels
and there it lies, seasoning by the river…
So lay Anthemion’s son Simoisius, cut down
by the giant royal Ajax.
– Homer
The Iliad, Book 4, lines 557-564. This is an account of the death of Simoisius who is struck by a spear hurled by Great Ajax. Homer uses an extended simile to describe the Trojan youth falling down in the dust like a tall black poplar tree, cut down by a chariot-maker with his axe.