What poetic devices are used in the poem "The Cloud" by P.B. Shelley?

Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem "The Cloud" is a cloud personified. In other words, the poem is from the point of view of a cloud. The thunder is the cloud's "laughter," and through imagery, the reader can see, not only the clouds themselves, but also the "thirsty flowers," the streams, the seas. Personification is used again in the line,

"I bear light shade for the leaves when laid

In their noonday dreams." (Shelley ll. 3-4)

The...

Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem "The Cloud" is a cloud personified. In other words, the poem is from the point of view of a cloud. The thunder is the cloud's "laughter," and through imagery, the reader can see, not only the clouds themselves, but also the "thirsty flowers," the streams, the seas. Personification is used again in the line,

"I bear light shade for the leaves when laid

In their noonday dreams." (Shelley ll. 3-4)

The leaves are personified here as beings who dream. Throughout the poem, nature continues to be personified. "Great pines groan aghast" is another example as is "The sanguine Sunrise, with its meteor eyes." Here the reader gets the added imagery of the sunrise riding on the back of the cloud--as though flying with lit wings.

Snow is compared metaphorically to the cloud's pillow, and while the moon is a dancing maiden, the stars are a "swarm of golden bees." Shelley uses a simile when he writes,

"Sunbeam proof, I hang like a roof,

The mountains its columns be." (Shelley ll. 65-66)

And another simile toward the end,

"Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,

I arise and unbuild it again." (Shelley ll. 83-84)

This very famous poem also uses rhyme, but the rhyme scheme does not stay consistent throughout the entire poem.