Some Poems Worth Your Time: "Journey of the Magi" T.S. Eliot

I have always liked this poem, and if I had to choose one Eliot poem, this would be it. It is an overtly religious poem, though it manages to avoid easy answers. It is about anything except easy answers, I would say. I have written a few poems that try to give voice to religious and historical figures. But I doubt I will ever come close to the effect Eliot has achieved here.

As it is in the public domain, here is the text of the poem:

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 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.