April 30, 2007: Journey of the Magi, T.S. Eliot
Journey of the Magi
T.S. Eliot
‘A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For the journey, and such a long journey:
The ways 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 was
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.
[I love this poem because it takes a kind of nondescript Bible character, one of the three kings in the Christmas story, and gives him such a rich voice and vibrant story. To go along with the idea of birth and death being a matched pair, there are all these lovely details foreshadowing the crucifixion: three trees on the low sky for the crosses on Golgotha, hands dicing for silver both for Roman soldiers gambling for Jesus’ robes and what Judas was payed. Plus it seems wintry at first, but it’s such a cool springtime poem, about coming down before the frost line, everything beginning. And because it’s Eliot, of course, you can’t have anything starting without reminders that everything is cyclical, everything has to end—
Even National Poetry Month, alas! Thanks so much for letting me inflict these on you! If you’d like to keep reading poetry, some links:
PoetryFoundation.org — daily poem, nice design, news, articles, etc.
Poets.org — daily poem, bio pages for most major poets, info on poetry events nationwide.
The Writer’s Almanac — Garrison Keillor delivers a poem a day via e-mail or podcast.]
A year ago: Preludes, T.S. Eliot
Two years ago: A Song for Simeon, T.S. Eliot
