metaphor in this poem?

Question

what are examples of metaphor in the poem, the sun rising, by john donne?

Answer 1

The poem is metaphorical from the start to end.
Look at the last stanza for example:

She's all states, and all princes I ;
Nothing else is ;
Princes do but play us ; compared to this,
All honour's mimic, all wealth alchemy.
Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we,
In that the world's contracted thus ;
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that's done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere ;
This bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere.

The fool who has been likened to sun is addressed "Thine age asks ease" and told "This bed thy center is." The sun is now personified but metaphorically, Donne is talking about someone - BUSY old fool, Saucy pedantic wretch, who behaves like unruly Sun. Note that the poet does not use the simile, 'like' but simply says the old fool is unruly Sun.
That is an example of a metaphor.
**
Of course, it has many other literary properties/elements.

- apostrophe, figure of speech in which an absent person, a personified inanimate being, or an abstraction is addressed as though present. The term is derived from a Greek word meaning “a turning away,” and this sense is maintained when a narrative or dramatic thread is broken in order to digress by speaking directly to someone not there, e.g., “Envy, be silent and attend!”—Alexander Pope, “On a Certain Lady at Court.”


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Answer 2

the only important figure of speech in this poem is apostrophe.

apostrophe is when you talk to someone who isn't there (like talking to an imaginary friend).

donne opens the poem 'busy old fool, unruly sun'. but everybody knows that you can't really talk to the sun (the sun is not a person).

so donne is pretending to talk to the sun (the figure of speech called apostrophe).

the whole poem is one long apostrophe (and this is the only important figure of speech in the poem).

now that you know which is the main poetic technique, the next question is why is donne using it?

Answer 3

Speaking about yourslef or anyone within the third person, outside of usual speaking.