Longfellow has used many figures of speech in his poem to make it effective. His figurative language includes simile, metaphor, personification and onomatopoeia, among others. He speaks of the clouds losing their glory “like hosts in battle overthrown”. This is a fine smile. There are excellent personifications in “the sun’s returning march” and “soft gales Went forth to kiss the sun-clad vales”. Metaphors can be seen in ‘Pinnacles thrusting up shattered lances’ and The dark pine blasted, bare and cleft’. There is a superb onomatopoeia in ‘the whirl and flash of currents’.
