Advent Calendar: Journey of the Magi by T.S Eliot

Today's poem was first published as a pamphlet in 1927 as a commission by Faber & Gwyer, the first of T.S. Eliot's contributions to a series entitled 'The Aerial Poems'. The series paired an unpublished poem by a leading writer with new artwork from an eminent artist. Thomas Hardy, Siegfried Sassoon, Barnett Freedman and John Nash were among the contributors to the first set, which broadly carried a Christmas theme and which sold for one shilling. The publisher's hope was that the pamphlets might double-up as greeting cards, and Eliot himself sent them as festive gifts to the writers on Faber's poetry list. This poem was paired with a drawing by Edward McKnight Kauffer. 

Eliot takes on the familiar biblical story of the Magi, but suggests that for all their wisdom and intuition, the magi could not have known that this mysterious birth would unsettle them henceforth. Find the poem and an analysis here.