Favorite Poems
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This poem by T. S. (Thomas Stearns) Eliot has always
been a favorite of mine, especially in the winter as we reflect on the meaning
of Christmas. Another T. S. Eliot poem which always spoke to me is "The
Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" where Eliot has the line, "I have
measured out my life with coffee spoons." Every time I have done
something repeatedly in my life, I have thought of this line - how we do
trivial, meaningless things over and over even as the time left to us in life
slips away.
Journey of
the Magi
'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 the 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 into 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.
Thomas Stearns (T.S.)
Eliot
1927
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