T.S. Eliot and Christmas 2008
Please note: this will be the last post of 2008. I will have new thoughts to share mid-January after Christmas and my trip to Israel.
I love the celebration of Christmas for a thousand reasons. An annual tradition of mine is watch the movies It’s a Wonderful Life and A Christmas Carol. I also read a bit of poetry by T.S. Eliot, “Journey of the Magi,” and this year is no different:
A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The was 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 gong 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 lead all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I have 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.
Last night I kept returning to the phrase And three trees on the low skies . . . and recalled the three gifts the Magi brought–gold, frankincense, and myrrh–the most precious of all metals, a fragrant gum resin, and a resin with a bitter taste; the three were often brought to the funeral service of ancient kings. Even in his birth, there was the shadow of the death that awaited the Baby. As I will hold my grandchildren on Christmas day, I will think: These two were born to live, but another Baby was born to die so that we may live.
Joy to the world.
The Lord is come.
The Lord is coming.
May God bless you, visitors of this website. But of all the sites we visit this season, may Bethlehem receive the most hits.
