The following version of this poem was used to create this guide: Eliot, T.S. "Journey of the Magi" from "Ariel Poems" pamphlet (Faber & Gwyer, 1927).

Note that parenthetical citations within the guide refer to the lines of the poem from which the quotations are taken.

"Journey of the Magi" is a three-stanza, forty-three-line poem published for the first time in a pamphlet in 1927 about the journey of one of the Three Kings to witness the birth of Christ. The poem describes the harsh cold winter and the suffering it inflicts on the camels who must take long rests and lay down in the melting show. The Three Kings struggle with thoughts and memories of the warm, gorgeous summer they left behind and the hostility of the cities and towns they have passed through.

The speaker remembers the weariness he felt when he finally arrived at the home where Jesus Christ was born. Years have passed, and the speaker did not know whether he had arrived for a birth or a death at the time. He describes the birth of Christ as a death for him and his companions because the world has moved on and will soon be worshipping Christ instead of the old ways and traditions that the Magi represent.