Journey of the Magi

¹'A cold coming we had of it,

²Just the worst time of the year

³For a journey, and such a long journey:

⁴The ways deep and the weather sharp,

⁵The very dead of winter.'

⁶And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,

⁷Lying down in the melting snow.

⁸There were times we regretted

⁹The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,

¹⁰And the silken girls bringing sherbet.

¹¹Then the camel men cursing and grumbling

¹²And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,

¹³And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,

¹⁴And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly

¹⁵And the villages dirty and charging high prices:

¹⁶A hard time we had of it.

¹⁷At the end we preferred to travel all night,

¹⁸Sleeping in snatches,

¹⁹With the voices singing in our ears, saying

²⁰That this was all folly.

²¹Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,

²²Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;

²³With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,

²⁴And three trees on the low sky,

²⁵And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.

²⁶Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,

²⁷Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,

²⁸And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.

²⁹But there was no information, and so we continued

³⁰And arriving at evening, not a moment too soon

³¹Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

³²All this was a long time ago, I remember,

³³And I would do it again, but set down

³⁴This set down

³⁵This: were we led all that way for

³⁶Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,

³⁷We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,

³⁸But had thought they were different; this Birth was

³⁹Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.

⁴⁰We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,

⁴¹But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,

⁴²With an alien people clutching their gods.

⁴³I should be glad of another death.