The Complete Text of the Poem Journey of the Magi

Here is the full text of the Poem Journey of the Magi by T.S. Eliot.

T.S. Eliot: Journey of the Magi

Stanza One

A cold coming we had of it,

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

Stanza Two

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 arriving at evening, not a moment too soon

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

Stanza Three

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.

Analysis of Journey of the Magi

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