used to describe a kind of poetry in which the poet addresses inanimate objects -- such as here, the sun).   The personification of the sun is shown when the poet gives the Sun human qualities (calling it, for example, "busy" and a "fool", or that the Sun can "Goe tell Court-huntsmen, that the King will ride" (7)); the apostrophe is that the poet addresses, or pretends to speak to, the Sun at all.  So, in this poem, Donne is using both personification and apostrophe. The poet uses other figures of speech in this poem, as we will see, but the personification and the apostrophe are the dominant ones, and the rebuke of the sun is the idea which contains Donne's claims about the glories of his beloved and himself.

Donne uses hyperbole, also -- a form of poetic exaggeration.

Thy beames, so reverend, and strong
Why shouldst thou think?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a winke,
But that I would not lose her sight so long; (11-14)

Of course, Donne, no matter what he says, cannot "eclipse" the beams of the sun.  He is saying that the brightness and the beauty of the eyes of his beloved, and the importance and grandness of their love makes sunlight dim in comparison.  It's a broad, daring, and expansive hyperbole, and it implies not only the poet's strength of love-ardour, but also, perhaps, his foolhardy youthfulness.  These superlatives (another kind of figurative language) continue all the way to the end of the poem -- his beloved, and his love for her, are the greatest and most important things on earth -- in fact, in the end, the poet says that they are the whole earth.  A superlative, indeed!

These superlative ideas are all a kind of metaphor, extending and increasing in importance from the beginning to the end of the poem (a form of climax) -- the end, in which all of existence is contained within the bed of the two lovers.  The ruling trope of the personification of the sun is brought to a close near the end of the poem, when the poet directs the sun to only warm the lovers, because they are, contained in themselves, the entire world.  "...and since thy duties be/To warme the world, that's done in warming us." (27-28) It is bold, audacious writing, typical of Donne, and these are only some of the figures of speech he employs in this famous poem. 

Repetition occurs primarily in the final stanza, in which Donne's speaker repeats the word "all" four times, the "all" creating totalizing claims for love's power: love turns the speaker's beloved into "all states [countries]" and the speaker into "all princes." Compared to the lovers:

all honor's mimic, all wealth alchemy.

Donne's speaker also repeats the word warm twice, which puts emphasis on that term on that term:

To warm the world, that's done in warming us.

Donne uses apostrophe to address the sun as if it's a person, taking on a defiant tone to try to belittle it. The speaker doesn't want the sun to rise, because that means he and his beloved must leave their bed and part. Therefore, he taunts it as an "old fool" and a "pedantic wretch." Both terms imply that the sun doesn't need to rise when it does but foolishly sticks to a set schedule to annoy the couple. This implies that the sun has agency: it could rise when it wanted and rises too early with malevolent intent to bother and spy on the lovers.

The speaker, having set the sun up as a human-like adversary to the lovers, taunts it as not as powerful as it thinks. Ironically, according to the speaker, though the sun rises to annoy the twosome, it also does them good: it both illuminates how exalted their love is—they are happier than princes—and warms them with its beams.

1. Repetition--Donne's use of repetition is more subtle than many poets' use of the device.  Instead of relying on a refrain, Donne repeats structure and ideas more than mere sounds or words.  For example, each stanza is not only ten lines long but also includes short opening lines and then moves to the third and fourth lines (of each stanza) containing ten syllables each.  He repeats the pattern of ten syllables in the ninth and tenth lines of every stanza. If one looks at the lines that have repetitive structure, they are similar in the sense that they are the speaker's perception of what the sun truly means to mankind.

2.  Personification--Donne relies strongly on his personification of the sun. He first portrays the sun as an old, fickle woman.

BUSY old fool, unruly Sun, 
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains, call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run? 
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide 
Late school-boys and sour prentices (lines 1-6).

Donne views the sun as someone who enjoys disturbing others' pleasure, whether it is lovers who must break away from the romance of the night or boys who are up to no good under the cover of darkness. The poet continues to use personification to illustrate that the sun is an old woman who wants attention but who really has no true power over man. In fact, the speaker claims that he can ignore the "old woman" (the sun) simply by closing his eyes if he so chooses (Stanza 2).

3.  The irony is connected to the truth presented in Stanza 3.

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 (lines 25-28).

The irony lies in the idea that the sun should be viewed by humans as a power to be respected, but the speaker still feels that he can command her or even try to "ease" her work in her old age.

The speaker of John Donne's "The Sun Rising" addresses the sun using apostrophe, which is the term for a poetic address to something or someone who is not there or cannot answer. In this case, the sun is obviously not human, so it cannot respond to Donne's insults and commands. This also means that Donne uses personification to give the sun human qualities.

The poem begins with the speaker asking the sun two questions that convey the speaker's frustration with the sun:

Busy old fool, unruly sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run? (1-4)

I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink, But that I would not lose her sight so long; (13-14)

This poem by Donne is addressed to the "unruly sun," who is characterized as a "busy old fool" and attributed human motivations. Donne's personification of the sun is used to emphasize his own opposition to the idea that love should be confined by the seasons. This personification is also appended to "country ants," who, Donne suggests, would be better recipients of the sun's attention than humans more interested in love.

Apart from the imagery relating to the sun, we also find the use of metaphor in "hours, days, months, which are the rags of time." Here, "rags" is used in its archaic sense, meaning "clothes." Days, hours and months are simply the way in which time presents itself to us as an understandable concept.

We also find the use of rhyme for emphasis in this poem. What is particularly interesting for the modern reader is that the rhyme scheme gives us some inclination of how words would have been pronounced in Donne's time, with "I" rhyming with "alchemy" and "everywhere" with "sphere," for example.

There are multiple literary devices found within the lines of John Donne's poem "The Sun Rising."

Personification- The giving of human characteristics or abilities to nonhuman/nonliving things.

In line one of the poem, the sun is personified.

BUSY old fool, unruly Sun.

Here, the sun is given the ability to be a fool and unruly.

Metaphor- A comparison made between two typically unlike things (not using "like" or "as").

The first line is also a metaphor. The sun is being compared to an "old fool."

Alliteration- This is the repetition of a consonant sound within a line of poetry.

The second, third and fourth lines of the poem contain alliteration.

Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains, call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?

In the second line, the "t" sound is repeated in "thou" and "thus." The third lines has two examples of alliteration: the "t" in both of the times "through" is used and the "c" in "curtains" and "calls." In the fourth line, "m" is repeated (in "must" and "motion").

These three literary devices are repeated over the course of the poem.