Simile refers to an analogy overtly stated, usually with the
help of "like, as, than, similar to, resembles, or seems" (Arp 68).
For examples, Hardy describes the lamp in the dark "began to outloom /
Like dandelion-globes in the gloom" (Nims 27); T. S. Eliot's Prufrock
sees the evening "spread out...like a patient etherized upon a table"
(Ellman xliii); or how Sitwell puts in "An Old Woman":

    I, an old woman whose heart is like the Sun
    That has seen too much, looked on too many sorrows
    Yet is not weary of shining.... (Korg 61)