insprightly dance." The whistling repetition of the s sound is a reminder of the breeze which blows and moves these daffodils.

The poem also employs caesura, demonstrated in this line: "I gazed—and gazed—but little thought." This intentional pause within the line reflects the speaker's efforts to appreciate the beauty before him. This requires his own intentional pause and a commitment to focusing on this scene, much as the reader must slow down and commit to this line for longer than would be necessary without the em dashes.

When the speaker concludes that this thinking back upon this scene of daffodils brings joy to his "heart," he is employing metonymy. Of course, his coronary system is not literally affected by this memory, but his spirit of joy is. We often consider a person's heart to represent his soul or emotional well-being, and that is how the speaker is employing the term heart here.

An overarching figure of speech that Wordsworth uses in his poem "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" is meter. The poem is written in four stanzas, each consisting of six lines of iambic tetrameter rhymed ABABCC.

He also uses the figure of isocolon, parallel clauses each of the same length and rhythmical pattern in the line:

Beside the lake, beneath the trees ...

The poem begins with a simile, a figure of explicit comparison, when the narrator says he was as "lonely as a cloud." A second figure of comparison, metaphor, which does not use explicit comparative terms such as "like" and "as", can be found in the comparison of the daffodils with the stars in the galaxy. In his numbering them as ten thousand, he uses the figure of hyperbole or exaggeration. 

Wordsworth personifies the daffodils, describing them as if they were human capable of human feelings and actions such as dancing and jocundity.

In the first line Wordsworth uses personification and simile: 'I wandered lonelyas a cloud'. A cloud can obviously not wander or feel lonely - these are human attributes or actions. The comparison effectively reflects the Romantic ideal of finding expression for the human condition in nature and establishes the link between man and nature. Furthermore, the line also expresses the idea of the poet or artist finding inspiration when he/she is isolated from the rest of mankind and is at one with nature - another Romanticist aspiration.

'Crowd' (line 3) and 'fluttering and dancing' (line 5) extend the personification. A large number of the daffodils seem to be dancing, celebrating their freedom and being in nature (natural).

The infinite beauty of the flowers and their link with what is natural is emphasized in the second stanza through the simile: 'Continuous as the stars that shine and twinkle on the milky way'. 'Tossing their heads in sprightly dance' is once again, personification, again emphasising the joy of nature.

Stanza three further extends the personification with the waves also dancing, but the daffodils joyously outdances them. Wordsworth says that their company is 'jocund' - they are full of joy and life. The metaphor emphasizes the joy nature can bring, for the speaker declares that he 'little thought what wealth the show to me had brought'. He was enriched by the experience without even realising it at the time.

The value of the experience lies within the speaker's memory. So charmed was he by witnessing these beautiful daffodils that 'my heart with pleasurefills and dances with the daffodils', whenever he is in deep thought and recalls the experience.

There are a number of figures of speech in this poem.

The first is personification: "I" and "cloud" are being personified. The second is the simile "as a cloud." The daffodils are also personified as they dance and are gleeful.

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

The waves are also personified as they dance. That should get you started on your essay. This poem is about a moment in time when Wordsworth and his sister were walking along the lake shore in Cumbria County, England 1802. The theme is about how nature's beauty is often unappreciated or undervalued.

One extended metaphor in Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” is in the comparison of nature to something materially valuable. In making this comparison, Wordsworth supports the idea that nature is a treasured resource that is always there for us.

The speaker describes wandering through nature and coming upon a field of daffodils, which appear to be dancing in the breeze. This image of the dancing flowers is beautiful, and the speaker stops to admire it. In this metaphor, he calls the flowers “golden,” which brings up an idea of importance. Gold is a valuable resource that people seem to want in great quantities. Therefore, equating the yellow daffodils with gold gives them a great value.

Wordsworth continues the metaphor as the speaker compares the flowers to the “stars that shine / And twinkle.” These lines call to mind a valuable gem, one that sparkles and shines, suggesting its great worth. Wordsworth is commenting on nature’s great value, as the speaker explicitly states it was only later that he realized “What wealth the show to me had brought.” Nature is to be valued as much as, if not more than, any sparkly gem. Here, nature brings happiness and peace to the speaker, who was previously feeling quite lonely.

The last stanza ends the metaphor, as the speaker reminisces about that day he discovered the daffodils. Whenever he feels sad, the image of the dancing flowers flashes through his mind, and his heart “dances” with them. He feels “bliss” now because he has the comfort of great wealth—“Ten thousand” daffodils are there for him whenever he needs them.

In the final stanza, Wordsworth refers to the memory of the daffodils flashing "upon that inward eye." Neither Wordsworth nor any other human being actually has some part of his body that can be identified as an inward eye; he's speaking metaphorically.

What he means is that the daffodils have had such a powerful effect upon him that he can see them just as clearly now as when he first encountered them on that fateful day when he wandered lonely as a cloud. They do not simply appear to his inward eye, which could well be a metaphor for the soul; they flash upon it, in much the same way as a flash of lightning illuminates everything on an otherwise dark and gloomy day.

A metaphor is a comparison that does not use the words "like" or "as." A metaphor that Wordsworth uses throughout "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" is that of dancing.

Wordsworth describes the thousands of daffodils he sees massed in front of a lake one spring day as "dancing in the breeze." Of course, they are not literally doing a dance, but the way the breeze blows them makes them look as if they are engaged in a lively, choreographed dance. We can picture the daffodils all at once bending one way and then another in the breeze.

Liking the metaphor of the daffodils dancing, Wordsworth later describes them as

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

Of course, they are not literally tossing their heads or dancing, but the poet uses the dance metaphor to personify, or humanize, them, causing us to see the daffodils as people.

The poet next states that the water is dancing, but not in such a lively and arresting way as the daffodils:

the waves beside them danced but they /Out-did the sparkling waves in glee.

Finally, in the last line of the poem, the poet extends the dance metaphor to his own heart, saying his heart dances when it remembers the daffodils. Of course, the narrator's heart is not literally dancing, but the metaphor expresses the joy the memory of the flowers brings to him.

Hyperbole is the use of exaggeration for effect. Examples of this literary device appear in “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” when the narrator describes the number of daffodils he saw that day. The flowers filled an entire field. They were “continuous,” they “stretched in a never-ending line,” and he thought he saw “Ten thousand” of them at a single glance. Some could say that these are terms of hyperbole because it would be impossible to find a field of 10,000 daffodils in real life. At least through these words, Wordsworth paints an image in the reader’s mind of what such a place would look like. Whether or not the actual field he saw that inspired this poem held this many flowers doesn’t matter. And who could make the time to count them, anyway?

Some may also consider the daffodils’ “dance” as a use of hyperbole, too. I suggest that it is instead anthropomorphic – assigning a human characteristic to something that is not human. Obviously, flowers cannot dance in the way that we humans can. But in a stiff wind, the tumbler-shaped heads of daffodils will bounce up and down and all around, in nodding fashion. An entire field of them may indeed give the impression that they are dancing with one another, even though their stems will still hold them firmly in one place, in the ground.

The symbolism in "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" reinforces the importance of nature by demonstrating its ability to bring great joy.

The cloud becomes a symbol of loneliness, as the title indicates. Clouds are able to observe the earth's beauty from a distance but remain disconnected from any sense of earthly intimacy. As the poem begins, the speaker feels similarly disconnected and isolated, and his heart aches with loneliness.

In contrast, the speaker's mood is greatly lifted when he spies the daffodils, which symbolize joy. Their color is "golden," which connotes great value and splendor. They dance freely in the breeze, mimicking the festive actions of humans as they flutter. Daffodils are one of the first signs of spring's emergence, so they also symbolize new life; this symbolism is central to the speaker's thoughts in the final stanza. He contemplates how his memory of the daffodils has the ability to transform any "pensive mood" which he suffers in "solitude."

The waves also "dance" in this picturesque scene. As part of the Earth's natural beauty, they symbolize freedom and serenity. Although the speaker appreciates the beauty of the waves, he finds that they pale in comparison to the simple beauty of the daffodils.

Here are the figures of speech in the third stanza of "Daffodils," by William Wordsworth:

The waves beside them danced, [personification=waves given human characteristics],but they/Out-did the sparkling waves in glee;[personification]/

A poet [metonymy=a part to represent the whole:  "poet" represents all people] could not but be gay,/

In such a jocund company [personification=daffodils are happy like people]:/I gaze--and gazed--but little thought/

What wealth [metaphor:  "wealth"=contentment, meaning] the show  [metaphor for the beauty of Nature in the "show" of the daffodils] to me had brought

In 1762 when Jean-Jacques Rousseau published The Social Contract, this Romanticist wrote that man is born free, yet "we see him everywhere in chains."  Like Rousseau, Wordsworth perceives the breaking free of these chains of society in order to regain communion with Nature as highly desirable.  Indeed, man's melancholy is caused by the unnatural restraints of society.  When he gazes at daffodils (Nature) and senses the beauty and joy of Nature, he is free and happy.  Wordsworth, like Henry David Thoreau, felt that man's existential meaning was derived from the rural scene rather than in the cities, the centers of civilization.  Until he sees the "jocund" daffodils, the poet "wanders lonely as a cloud," but once in touch with Nature and its happy beauty, he finds meaning and joy in his life with the expression of human emotion. ("What wealth the show to me had brought.") For, when the poet senses again the beauty of the daffodils, his "heart with pleasure fills."

The fourth stanza of this poem shows the speaker away from the daffodils, at home, and thinking back upon them.  The thought is demonstrated as a picture in his "inner eye."  This picture brings him joy and he "dances with the daffodils."  The rejuvenating spirit of nature is highlighted in this stanza, and Wordsworth uses personification and metaphor in this stanza for his meaning.

First he personifies the daffodils, giving them the power to "flash upon" his inner eye.  This echoes the personification of the earlier stanzas, when Wordsworth brings the daffodils to life in their dancing ways.  The reason for this is to honor this aspect of nature in a humanly way, giving it more importance and power. 

Metaphor is used in the last two lines, when the speaker suggests that he "dances" with them.  He is comparing his uplifted spirits with a literal dance in order to demonstrate how effective the image of nature is in uplifting his spirits.

The speaker uses a simile when he says, "I wandered lonely as a cloud . . . " A simile compares two unalike things, like a person and a cloud, using the words like or as. The speaker uses personification when he describes the daffodils as "dancing in the breeze." Personification is when the poet gives human attributes to something that is not human, like being able to dance. The speaker employs another simile to describe the long stretch of daffodils as "Continuous as the stars that shine / And twinkle on the milky way[.]" He uses the word as to compare how numerous the flowers are to a night sky full of stars. The daffodils are again personified by the speaker when he describes them as "Tossing their heads in sprightly dance." The waves of water are likewise personified as "danc[ing]" as well, and the daffodils actually "Out-did the sparkling waves in glee," another example of personification that gives the flowers the ability to be happy. Finally, the speaker personifies his own heart when he describes it as "danc[ing] with the daffodils."

I am assuming that when questioning the figures in William Wordsworth's poem "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud," you are referring to all of the entities which appear in the poem. Therefore, the following entities appear in the poem.

"I"- I is the narrator of the poem. the narrator is retelling a time in life where he (only assumed based upon Wordsworth's gender) wandered Ullswater.

Cloud- This entity is personified through the narrator's comparison to himself.

Daffodils- These entities are referred to as hosts of the scene.

Waves- The waves are compared to the vast number of flowers, but the narrator finds that they pale in comparison to the flowers.

In the first stanza of "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud," Wordsworth puts himself in the place of a cloud, and states that he (the cloud) "wandered lonely...o'er vales and hills" and then down below him, saw an entire "crowd" of daffodils.  Simply put, a cloud is wandering, or floating over some hills, when it comes upon a field filled with daffodils.  It is a pretty straightforward stanza, and sets up the rest of the poem.

Wordsworth uses personification to compare the daffodils to a "crowd".  Personification is where you give inanimate objects human-like traits, and daffodils can't crowd together like humans can.  Crowding implies action and choice.  He continues with personification when he says that the daffodils are "dancing" in the breeze; only humans can dance, so he is personfying the daffodils there.  Check out the last line of the second stanza also, where the flowers are "tossing their heads in a sprightly dance."  This too is personification, and that continues throughout the entire poem, so watch for it.

Wordsworth also uses a simile in the poem (comparing two things using like or as); the first line of stanza two has him saying the flowers are "continuous as the stars that shine."  Later, he uses a metaphor when he compares the flowers to being at the edge of a bay, jumping and jostling on the "waves" of the wind.

Those are just a few techniques in the poem; I hope that those thoughs help.  Good luck!