In his famous essay "The Poet", Emerson states that men skilled in the use of words are not true poets, saying: "...we do not speak now of men of poetic talent, or of industry and skill in meter, but of the true poet" (qtd. in Richards, 103). And shortly after he adds: "Because it is not the meters, but a subject that makes the meters, that forms a poem" (104). According to Emerson, a poet who values ​​form over thought is not a poet at all, but rather simply a skilled manipulator of words. For him, a poet must be the articulator of some genuine thought or argument; it is not enough to create a poem solely on the sound and effect of words. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay In 1844, the same year Emerson published his essay, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow published “The Day is Done,” a poem that directly opposes the point made in “The Poet.” Longfellow is hyperaware of the meter, rhyme, word choice, and overall sound of his poetry; in fact, these elements are what make the poem a cohesive and successful work. As a result of Longfellow's attention to the effect of words and apparent disdain for what Emerson would call an "argument for building meters," "The Day is Done" serves as a counterargument to Emerson's initial statement. Emerson seems to suggest that the true poet is one who can articulate the divine. In other words, he embraces a Romantic view of nature and language, arguing that the true poet can "bring back the conversation" he has with nature, a physical manifestation of the divine. The true poet "will penetrate that region where the air is music...he will listen to those primordial warbles and attempt to write them down" (103). Longfellow attacks this statement in "The Day is Done" with his treatment of the divine. In Longfellow's poem, the speaker calls for the reading of a poem that arouses a divine sensibility. However, the required poetry is self-referential; Longfellow's poem has all the qualities of required poetry. If the requested poem has the "power to still / The restless pulse of care / And come like the blessing / Which follows after the prayer" (lines 33-36), and Longfellow's poem has all the qualities of the requested poem, then By syllogism, Longfellow's poetry has the ability to evoke the divine. Most importantly, however, the divine is not evoked through thought or reasoning. Rather, the divine is evoked precisely through the effect created by word choice, rhyme, meter and overall effect. One of the ways Longfellow evokes the divine through prosody is the use of the number three. The most important event of number three is in the stress pattern; the poem is written in trimeter, with three accents per line. To emphasize the importance of the three, the first line of the poem contains three words starting with the letter “d”: “day,” “fact,” and “darkness.” The triple alliteration in the first line, combined with the triple emphasis throughout the poem, draws attention to the number three, a symbol of the Trinity. The only time Longfellow interrupts the trimeter is in the first line of the sixth stanza: "Why, like melodies of martial music" (line 21). However, this interruption does not endanger the poem's relationship with the Trinity, but rather strengthens it. For the context of the verse is a description of the poetry of the "great ancient masters" (verse 17) and the "sublime bards" (verse 18). The speaker asks that the recipient of the poem read a poem that is "simple" and "heartfelt" (line 14), not like the poems of the great ancient masters. Of those poems, he writes: "For, like melodies of martial music/ Their mighty thoughts suggest / Life's endless toil and effort / And tonight I long for rest" (lines 21-24). Interestingly, he calls attention to the break in meter through the first word, "for ". Playing on the similarity between "for" and "four", Longfellow invites the reader to note that the phrase about the great ancient masters has four accents, not three. The implication is that there is something unholy in that phrase and, what more importantly, in the "trends of martial music." While paying homage to ancient poets with words such as "great... masters" and "sublime bards," Longfellow affirms the divine quality of his poetry, more simple and heartfelt of note is that Longfellow discredits those poets for "their mighty thoughts" (line 22). This line seems particularly aimed at Emerson, who writes, "Thought and form are the same in the order of time, but in the order of genesis, thought is before form" (103). While Emerson praises thought as a poem's primary agent, Longfellow dismisses the great masters of the past for their "mighty thoughts," instead arguing for the importance of form, and more specifically the sound of language. Finally, Longfellow highlights his criticism of the great ancient masters and their powerful thoughts in the phrase “strains of martial music” (line 21). On the one hand, the alliterative “m” sound adds to the musical nature of the line. On the other hand, the trochaic phrase "martial music" is harsh and evokes images of war, armies and marches. Longfellow distinguishes the trochaic poetry of the masters from his own, more relaxing poetry by frequently using iambs, as in the line "The restless beat of the cure" (34). The speaker suggests that the poems of the great ancient masters do not possess the calming, soporific quality he seeks; the breaking of the trimeter and the use of the trocheo dissociates them - poetically and metaphorically - from the divine. In the seventh and eighth stanzas, Longfellow presents his own representation of the poet. While Emerson's poet is simply a recorder of the divine, Longfellow's poet's experience is more in line with Wordsworth's "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" discussed in his Preface to Lyrical Ballads. Longfellow writes: “Read from some humbler poet / Whose songs flowed from his heart / As rains from summer clouds / Or tears from eyelids begin; / Who, through long days of labor / And nights without ease / Still heard in his soul the music / Of marvelous melodies" (25-32). Longfellow's mention of music echoes Emerson's idea of ​​penetrating the region "where the air is music" (103). However, in Longfellow's poetry, the "wonderful melodies" come from the humble poet, not from a transcendent, ethereal world. Finally, Longfellow's choice of the word "humble" to describe the poet evokes notions of humility and Christ, as does the line "O begin the tears from the eyelids" (28). Unlike Emerson's poet, who merely records the divine, Longfellow's poet realizes the divine through the sound of his own poetry. This very point is emphasized in the stanza that follows: "Such songs have the power to calm / The restless heartbeat of care / And come like the blessing / That follows after prayer" (33-36). Following the association of Longfellow's song poetry with the divine, the speaker continues: "Then read from the precious volume / The poetry you have chosen / And lend to the poet's rhyme / The beauty of your voice" (37-40) . First, the “precious volume” of line 37 evokes the idea of ​​the Bible. However, the speaker is not asking for a poem to be read from the Bible, as the Bible is the word of God. Rather than asking to hear a Bible story which is a story that a great poet wrote down from the words of God,.