at is "unmoved" by persistent prayers. She tells how the other young women are so devoted to kneeling before this God, yet he never answers their prayers or listens. In the last line, the speaker makes a sarcastic statement about the God that she speaks of. She says, "That if not omnipotent at least he be bilingual". This speaker too must have had an upsetting encounter with God. Her tone sounds short-tempered and rude, yet somewhat sarcastic. She ever sounds like she doesn't even care that God doesn't listen. .
The setting is greatly different in these two poems. The Magi is telling his story back in biblical times. He wrote this literal story about his journey to see the Christ child upon his birth. This event took place thousands of years ago, so this setting is dated very far back. In contrast, the Latin women could have talked about this yesterday. Her poem has a very modern setting leaving it open to interpretation for the exact date. The setting difference could prove why the poem's tones are the way they are. In T.S. Eliot's poem the speaker isn't really talking bad about God or a heavenly being, but that of a terrible journey and the confused outcome of it. Back in biblical times, people weren't as accustomed to believing in an omnipotent, all-knowing God as people of today are. On the other hand, Cofer's speaker has obviously "been burned" by a religion and is striking back against it by talking about a god in a negative or sarcastic way. .
The imagery that takes place in both the poems is very visual. T.S. Eliot's poem appeals more to the sounds than that of Cofer's poem though. The speaker makes you hear his trip by talking about the complaining workers and running streams. In "The Journey of the Magi", the imagery of the trip is all very ugly and desolate talking about the "dead of winter" and the "dirty villages". The only time the imagery is pretty is when the speaker is talking about the home that he misses.
