Journey Of The Magi Analysis

'A cold coming we had of it,

Just the worst time of the year

For a journey, and such a 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 in

     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 imformation, 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.





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