{
 "id": "t-s-eliot/journey-of-the-magi",
 "title": "Journey of the Magi",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "T. S. Eliot",
 "poet_slug": "t-s-eliot",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poetry",
 "book_slug": null,
 "book_kind": "compilation",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1927,
  "venue": "Journey of the Magi (London, Faber & Gwyer, 1927), The Ariel Poems no. 8",
  "note": "A single-poem pamphlet of four pages, issued in the Ariel Poems series; it is not modelled here as a volume in the poet's books. No earlier periodical printing has been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://openlibrary.org/books/OL242542M"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
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  "repo": "standardebooks/t-s-eliot_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
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   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009592742",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1321",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001835100",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100218549",
   "https://archive.org/details/poems19091925030616mbp",
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedpoems1900elio",
   "https://www.fadedpage.com/showbook.php?pid=20200705",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemswritteninea00elio",
   "https://theworld.com/~raparker/exploring/tseliot/works/poems/eliot-harvard-poems.html"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-12"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 43,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 60,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "“A cold coming we had of it,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Just the worst time of the year",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For a journey, and such a long journey:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The ways deep and the weather sharp,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The very dead of winter.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lying down in the melting snow.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "There were times we regretted",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the silken girls bringing sherbet.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then the camel men cursing and grumbling",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the villages dirty and charging high prices:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A hard time we had of it.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At the end we preferred to travel all night,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sleeping in snatches,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With the voices singing in our ears, saying",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That this was all folly.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And three trees on the low sky,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But there was no information, and so we continued",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "All this was a long time ago, I remember,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I would do it again, but set down",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This set down",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This: were we led all that way for",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But had thought they were different; this Birth was",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With an alien people clutching their gods.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I should be glad of another death.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}