Journey of the Magi (T. S. Eliot)

             A cold coming we had of it, 

          Just the worst time of the year 

          For a journey, and such a journey:  

          The ways were deep and the weather sharp, 

          The very dead of winter, 

          And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory, 

          Lying down in the melting snow. 

          There were times we regretted 

          The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces, 

          And the silken girls bringing sherbet. 

            

          Then the camel men cursing and grumbling 

          And running away, and wanting their liquor and women, 

          And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters, 

          And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly 

          And the villages dirty and charging high prices: 

          A hard time we had of it. 

          At the end we preferred to travel all night 

          Sleeping in snatches, 

          With the voices singing in our ears, saying, 

          That this was all folly. 

           

          Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley, 

          Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation; 

          With a running stream and a water-mill 

          beating the darkness, 

          And three trees on the low sky, 

          And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow. 

          Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel, 

          Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver, 

          And feet kicking the empty wine-skins. 

          But there was no information, and so we continued 

          And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon 

          Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory. 

           

          All this was a long time ago, I remember

          And I would do it again, but set down

          This set down

          This: were we led all that way for

          Birth or Death?  There was a Birth, certainly,

          We had evidence and no doubt.  I had seen birth and death,

          But had thought they were different;

          This Birth way

          Hard and bitter agony for us, like

          Death, our death.

          We returned to our places, these

          Kingdoms,

          But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,

          With an alien people clutching their gods.

          I should be glad of another death.

--T. S. Eliot

Image source 1:  Edward Burne-Jones, Adoration of the Magi

Image source 2:  Journey of the Magi, mosaic, Basilica Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna, 6th century.

Poem source