10 Best Famous Magi Poems

Here is a collection of the top 10 all-time best famous Magi poems. This is a select list of the best famous Magi poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Magi poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of magi poems.

• All Famous Magi Poems

 'A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a 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 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 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 in 
 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 imformation, 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.

 So it has come to this
insomnia at 3:15 A.M., 
the clock tolling its engine 

like a frog following 
a sundial yet having an electric 
seizure at the quarter hour. 

The business of words keeps me awake. 
I am drinking cocoa, 
that warm brown mama. 

I would like a simple life 
yet all night I am laying 
poems away in a long box. 

It is my immortality box, 
my lay-away plan, 
my coffin. 

All night dark wings 
flopping in my heart. 
Each an ambition bird. 

The bird wants to be dropped 
from a high place like Tallahatchie Bridge. 

He wants to light a kitchen match 
and immolate himself. 

He wants to fly into the hand of Michelangelo 
anc dome out painted on a ceiling. 

He wants to pierce the hornet's nest 
and come out with a long godhead. 

He wants to take bread and wine 
and bring forth a man happily floating in the Caribbean. 

He wants to be pressed out like a key 
so he can unlock the Magi. 

He wants to take leave among strangers 
passing out bits of his heart like hors d'oeuvres. 

He wants to die changing his clothes 
and bolt for the sun like a diamond. 

He wants, I want. 
Dear God, wouldn't it be 
good enough to just drink cocoa? 

I must get a new bird 
and a new immortality box. 
There is folly enough inside this one.

 This is the desk I sit at
and this is the desk where I love you too much
and this is the typewriter that sits before me
where yesterday only your body sat before me
with its shoulders gathered in like a Greek chorus,
with its tongue like a king making up rules as he goes,
with its tongue quite openly like a cat lapping milk,
with its tongue -- both of us coiled in its slippery life.
That was yesterday, that day.
That was the day of your tongue,
your tongue that came from your lips,
two openers, half animals, half birds
caught in the doorway of your heart.
That was the day I followed the king's rules,
passing by your red veins and your blue veins,
my hands down the backbone, down quick like a firepole,
hands between legs where you display your inner knowledge,
where diamond mines are buried and come forth to bury,
come forth more sudden than some reconstructed city.
It is complete within seconds, that monument.
The blood runs underground yet brings forth a tower.
A multitude should gather for such an edifice.
For a miracle one stands in line and throws confetti.
Surely The Press is here looking for headlines.
Surely someone should carry a banner on the sidewalk.
If a bridge is constructed doesn't the mayor cut a ribbon?
If a phenomenon arrives shouldn't the Magi come bearing gifts?
Yesterday was the day I bore gifts for your gift
and came from the valley to meet you on the pavement.
That was yesterday, that day.
That was the day of your face,
your face after love, close to the pillow, a lullaby.
Half asleep beside me letting the old fashioned rocker stop,
our breath became one, became a child-breath together,
while my fingers drew little o's on your shut eyes,
while my fingers drew little smiles on your mouth,
while I drew I LOVE YOU on your chest and its drummer
and whispered, "Wake up!" and you mumbled in your sleep,
"Sh. We're driving to Cape Cod. We're heading for the Bourne
Bridge. We're circling the Bourne Circle." Bourne!
Then I knew you in your dream and prayed of our time
that I would be pierced and you would take root in me
and that I might bring forth your born, might bear
the you or the ghost of you in my little household.
Yesterday I did not want to be borrowed
but this is the typewriter that sits before me
and love is where yesterday is at.

 I WOULD I could weave in
 The colour, the wonder,
 The song I conceive in
 My heart while I ponder,


 And show how it came like
 The magi of old
 Whose chant was a flame like
 The dawn’s voice of gold;


 Whose dreams followed near them
 A murmur of birds,
 And ear still could hear them
 Unchanted in words.


 In words I can only
 Reveal thee my heart,
 Oh, Light of the Lonely,
 The shining impart.


Between the twilight and the dark
The lights danced up before my eyes:
I found no sleep or peace or rest,
But dreams of stars and burning skies.


I knew the faces of the day—
Dream faces, pale, with cloudy hair,
I knew you not nor yet your home,
The Fount of Shadowy Beauty, where?


I passed a dream of gloomy ways
Where ne’er did human feet intrude:
It was the border of a wood,
A dreadful forest solitude.


With wondrous red and fairy gold
The clouds were woven o’er the ocean;
The stars in fiery æther swung
And danced with gay and glittering motion.


A fire leaped up within my heart
When first I saw the old sea shine;
As if a god were there revealed
I bowed my head in awe divine;


And long beside the dim sea marge
I mused until the gathering haze
Veiled from me where the silver tide
Ran in its thousand shadowy ways.


The black night dropped upon the sea:
The silent awe came down with it:
I saw fantastic vapours flee
As o’er the darkness of the pit.


When lo! from out the furthest night
A speck of rose and silver light
Above a boat shaped wondrously
Came floating swiftly o’er the sea.


It was no human will that bore
The boat so fleetly to the shore
Without a sail spread or an oar.


The Pilot stood erect thereon
And lifted up his ancient face,
Ancient with glad eternal youth
Like one who was of starry race.


His face was rich with dusky bloom;
His eyes a bronze and golden fire;
His hair in streams of silver light
Hung flamelike on his strange attire,


Which, starred with many a mystic sign,
Fell as o’er sunlit ruby glowing:
His light flew o’er the waves afar
In ruddy ripples on each bar
Along the spiral pathways flowing.


It was a crystal boat that chased
The light along the watery waste,
Till caught amid the surges hoary
The Pilot stayed its jewelled glory.


Oh, never such a glory was:
The pale moon shot it through and through
With light of lilac, white and blue:
And there mid many a fairy hue,
Of pearl and pink and amethyst,
Like lightning ran the rainbow gleams
And wove around a wonder-mist.


The Pilot lifted beckoning hands;
Silent I went with deep amaze
To know why came this Beam of Light
So far along the ocean ways
Out of the vast and shadowy night.


“Make haste, make haste!” he cried. “Away!
A thousand ages now are gone.
Yet thou and I ere night be sped
Will reck no more of eve or dawn.”


Swift as the swallow to its nest
I leaped: my body dropt right down:
A silver star I rose and flew.
A flame burned golden at his breast:
I entered at the heart and knew
My Brother-Self who roams the deep,
Bird of the wonder-world of sleep.


The ruby vesture wrapped us round
As twain in one; we left behind
The league-long murmur of the shore
And fleeted swifter than the wind.


The distance rushed upon the bark:
We neared unto the mystic isles:
The heavenly city we could mark,
Its mountain light, its jewel dark,
Its pinnacles and starry piles.


The glory brightened: “Do not fear;
For we are real, though what seems
So proudly built above the waves
Is but one mighty spirit’s dreams.


“Our Father’s house hath many fanes;
Yet enter not and worship not,
For thought but follows after thought
Till last consuming self it wanes.


“The Fount of Shadowy Beauty flings
Its glamour o’er the light of day:
A music in the sunlight sings
To call the dreamy hearts away
Their mighty hopes to ease awhile:
We will not go the way of them:
The chant makes drowsy those who seek
The sceptre and the diadem.


“The Fount of Shadowy Beauty throws
Its magic round us all the night;
What things the heart would be, it sees
And chases them in endless flight.
Or coiled in phantom visions there
It builds within the halls of fire;
Its dreams flash like the peacock’s wing
And glow with sun-hues of desire.
We will not follow in their ways
Nor heed the lure of fay or elf,
But in the ending of our days
Rest in the high Ancestral Self.”


The boat of crystal touched the shore,
Then melted flamelike from our eyes,
As in the twilight drops the sun
Withdrawing rays of paradise.


We hurried under archéd aisles
That far above in heaven withdrawn
With cloudy pillars stormed the night,
Rich as the opal shafts of dawn.


I would have lingered then—but he:
“Oh, let us haste: the dream grows dim,
Another night, another day,
A thousand years will part from him,
Who is that Ancient One divine
From whom our phantom being born
Rolled with the wonder-light around
Had started in the fairy morn.


“A thousand of our years to him
Are but the night, are but the day,
Wherein he rests from cyclic toil
Or chants the song of starry sway.
He falls asleep: the Shadowy Fount
Fills all our heart with dreams of light:
He wakes to ancient spheres, and we
Through iron ages mourn the night.
We will not wander in the night
But in a darkness more divine
Shall join the Father Light of Lights
And rule the long-descended line.”


Even then a vasty twilight fell:
Wavered in air the shadowy towers:
The city like a gleaming shell,
Its azures, opals, silvers, blues,
Were melting in more dreamy hues.
We feared the falling of the night
And hurried more our headlong flight.
In one long line the towers went by;
The trembling radiance dropt behind,
As when some swift and radiant one
Flits by and flings upon the wind
The rainbow tresses of the sun.


And then they vanished from our gaze
Faded the magic lights, and all
Into a starry radiance fell
As waters in their fountain fall.


We knew our time-long journey o’er
And knew the end of all desire,
And saw within the emerald glow
Our Father like the white sun-fire.


We could not say if age or youth
Were on his face: we only burned
To pass the gateways of the day,
The exiles to the heart returned.


He rose to greet us and his breath,
The tempest music of the spheres,
Dissolved the memory of earth,
The cyclic labour and our tears.
In him our dream of sorrow passed,
The spirit once again was free
And heard the song the morning stars
Chant in eternal revelry.


This was the close of human story;
We saw the deep unmeasured shine,
And sank within the mystic glory
They called of old the Dark Divine.


 Well it is gone now,
 The dream that I chanted:
 On this side the dawn now
 I sit fate-implanted.


 But though of my dreaming
 The dawn has bereft me,
 It all was not seeming
 For something has left me.


 I feel in some other
 World far from this cold light
 The Dream Bird, my brother,
 Is rayed with the gold light.


 I too in the Father
 Would hide me, and so,
 Bright Bird, to foregather
 With thee now I go.

 About suffering, about adoration, the old masters 
Disagree. When someone suffers, no one else eats 
Or walks or opens the window--no one breathes 
As the sufferers watch the sufferer. 
In St. Sebastian Mourned by St. Irene
The flame of one torch is the only light. 
All the eyes except the maidservant's (she weeps 
And covers them with a cloth) are fixed on the shaft 
Set in his chest like a column; St. Irene's 
Hands are spread in the gesture of the Madonna, 
Revealing, accepting, what she does not understand. 
Her hands say: "Lo! Behold!" 
Beside her a monk's hooded head is bowed, his hands 
Are put together in the work of mourning. 
It is as if they were still looking at the lance 
Piercing the side of Christ, nailed on his cross. 
The same nails pierce all their hands and feet, the same 
Thin blood, mixed with water, trickles from their sides. 
The taste of vinegar is on every tongue 
That gasps, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?"
They watch, they are, the one thing in the world. 

So, earlier, everything is pointed 
In van der Goes' Nativity, toward the naked 
Shining baby, like the needle of a compass. 
The different orders and sizes of the world: 
The angels like Little People, perched in the rafters 
Or hovering in mid-air like hummingbirds; 
The shepherds, so big and crude, so plainly adoring; 
The medium-sized donor, his little family, 
And their big patron saints; the Virgin who kneels 
Before her child in worship; the Magi out in the hills 
With their camels--they ask directions, and have pointed out 
By a man kneeling, the true way; the ox 
And the donkey, two heads in the manger 
So much greater than a human head, who also adore; 
Even the offerings, a sheaf of wheat, 
A jar and a glass of flowers, are absolutely still 
In natural concentration, as they take their part 
In the salvation of the natural world. 
The time of the world concentrates 
On this one instant: far off in the rocks 
You can see Mary and Joseph and their donkey 
Coming to Bethlehem; on the grassy hillside 
Where their flocks are grazing, the shepherds gesticulate 
In wonder at the star; and so many hundreds 
Of years in the future, the donor, his wife, 
And their children are kneeling, looking: everything 
That was or will be in the world is fixed 
On its small, helpless, human center. 

After a while the masters show the crucifixion 
In one corner of the canvas: the men come to see 
What is important, see that it is not important. 
The new masters paint a subject as they please, 
And Veronese is prosecuted by the Inquisition 
For the dogs playing at the feet of Christ, 
The earth is a planet among galaxies. 
Later Christ disappears, the dogs disappear: in abstract 
Understanding, without adoration, the last master puts 
Colors on canvas, a picture of the universe 
In which a bright spot somewhere in the corner 
Is the small radioactive planet men called Earth.

ZONE 


In the end you are tired of this ancient world 
Shepherd oh Eiffel Tower the herd of bridges is bleating this morning 

You've had enough of living in Greek and Roman antiquity 

Here even the cars look antique 
Only religion has stayed new religion 
Has stayed simple like the hangars at Port-Aviation 

You alone in Europe are not ancient oh Christianity 
The most modern European is you Pope Pius X 
And shame keeps you whom the windows are watching 
From entering a church and going to confession this morning 
You read the flyers catalogues posters that shout out 
There's the morning's poetry and as for prose there are the newspapers 
There are 25 cent tabloids full of crimes 
Celebrity items and a thousand different headlines 

This morning I saw a pretty street whose name I forget 
New and clean it was the sun's herald 
Executives workers and beautiful stenos 
Cross it four times a day from Monday morning to Saturday evening 
In the morning the siren moans three times 
An angry bell barks at noon 
The inscriptions on the signs and walls 
The billboards the notices squawk like parrots 
I love the charm of this industrial street 
In Paris between the Rue Aumont-Thiéville and the Avenue des Ternes 

There's the young street and you're still just a little boy 
Your mother dresses you only in blue and white 
You're very pious and along with your oldest friend René Dalize 
You like nothing better than the rituals of the Church 
It is nine o'clock the gas is low and blue you sneak out of the dormitory 
You pray all night in the school's chapel 
While in eternal adorable amethyst depths 
The flaming glory of Christ revolves forever 
It's the beautiful lily we all cultivate 
It's the torch with red hair the wind can't blow out 
It's the pale rosy son of the grieving mother 
It's the tree always leafy with prayers 
It's the paired gallows of honor and eternity 
It's the star with six branches 
It's God who dies on Friday and comes back to life on Sunday 
It's Christ who climbs to the sky better than any pilot 
He holds the world record for altitude 

Apple Christ of the eye 
Twentieth pupil of the centuries he knows how to do it 
And changed into a bird this century like Jesus climbs into the air 
Devils in their depths raise their heads to look at him 
They say he's copying Simon Magus in Judea 
They shout if he's so good at flying let's call him a fugitive 
Angels gyre around the handsome gymnast 
Icarus Enoch Elijah Apollonius of Tyana 
Hover around the first airplane 
They scatter sometimes to let the ones carrying the Eucharist pass 
Those priests that are forever ascending carrying the host 
Finally the plane lands without folding its wings 
And the sky is full of millions of swallows 
Crows falcons owls come in full flight 
Ibises flamingos storks come from Africa 
The Roc Bird made famous by storytellers and poets 
Soars holding in its claws Adam's skull the first head 
The eagle swoops screaming from the horizon 
And from America the little hummingbird comes 
From China the long agile peehees have come 
They have only one wing and fly in pairs 
Now here's the dove immaculate spirit 
Escorted by the lyre-bird and the spotted peacock 
The phoenix that self-engendering pyre 
For an instant hides all with its burning ash 
Sirens leaving the dangerous straits 
Arrive singing beautifully all three 
And all eagle phoenix peehees from China 
Hang out with the flying Machine 

Now you're walking in Paris all alone in the crowd 
Herds of buses amble by you mooing 
The anguish of love tightens your throat 
As if you were never going to be loved again 
If you lived in the old days you would enter a monastery 
You are ashamed when you catch yourself saying a prayer 
You make fun of yourself and your laughter crackles like the fire of Hell 
The sparks of your laughter gild the abyss of your life 
It is a painting hung in a dark museum 
And sometimes you go look at it close up 

Today you're walking in Paris the women have turned blood-red 
It was and I wish I didn't remember it was at the waning of beauty 
Surrounded by fervent flames Our Lady looked at me in Chartres 
The blood of your Sacred Heart drenched me in Montmartre 
I am sick from hearing blissful phrases 
The love I suffer from is a shameful sickness 
And the image that possesses you makes you survive in insomnia and anguish 
It is always near you this image that passes 

Now you're on the shores of the Mediterranean 
Under the lemon trees that are in flower all year long 
You go boating with some friends 
One is from Nice there's one from Menton and two from La Turbie 
We look with dread at the octopus of the deep 
And among the seaweed fish are swimming symbols of the Savior 

You are in the garden of an inn just outside of Prague 
You feel so happy a rose is on the table 
And you observe instead of writing your story in prose 
The Japanese beetle sleeping in the heart of the rose 

Terrified you see yourself drawn in the agates of Saint Vitus 
You were sad enough to die the day you saw yourself 
You look like Lazarus thrown into a panic by the daylight 
The hands on the clock in the Jewish district go counter-clockwise 
And you too are going slowly backwards in your life 
Climbing up to Hradcany and listening at night 
To Czech songs being sung in taverns 

Here you are in Marseilles in the middle of watermelons 

Here you are in Coblenz at the Giant Hotel 

Here you are in Rome sitting under a Japanese medlar tree 

Here you are in Amsterdam with a young woman you think is beautiful she is ugly 
She is engaged to a student from Leyden 
There they rent rooms in Latin Cubicula Locanda 
I remember I spent three days there and just as many in Gouda 

You are in Paris getting interrogated 
They're arresting you like a criminal 

You made some miserable and happy journeys 
Before you became aware of lies and of age 
You suffered from love at twenty and at thirty 
I've lived like a madman and I've wasted my time 
You don't dare look at your hands anymore and all the time I want to cry 
Over you over the women I love over everything that's terrified you 

Your tear-filled eyes watch the poor emigrants 
They believe in God they pray the women breast-feed the children 
They fill the waiting-room at the St. Lazaire station with their smell 
They have faith in their star like the Magi 
They hope to earn money in Argentina 
And go back to their country after making their fortune 
One family is carrying a red eiderdown the way you carry your heart 
The eiderdown and our dreams are equally unreal 
Some of these emigrants stay here and put up at the 
Rue des Rosiers or the Rue des Ecouffes in hovels 
I've seen them often at night they're out for a breath of air in the street 
And like chess pieces they rarely move 
They are mostly Jews the wives wearing wigs 
Sit still bloodless at the back of store-fronts 

You're standing in front of the counter at a sleazy bar 
You're having coffee for two sous with the down-and-out 

At night you're in a big restaurant 

These women aren't mean but they do have their troubles 
All of them even the ugliest has made her lover suffer 

She is a Jersey policeman's daughter 

Her hands that I hadn't seen are hard and chapped 

I feel immense pity for the scars on her belly 

I humble my mouth now to a poor hooker with a horrible laugh 

You are alone morning is approaching 
Milkmen clink their cans in the streets 

Night withdraws like a half-caste beauty 
Ferdine the false or thoughtful Leah 

And you drink this alcohol burning like your life 
Your life that you drink like an eau-de-vie 

You walk towards Auteuil you want to go home on foot 
To sleep surrounded by your fetishes from the South Seas and from Guinea 
They are Christs in another form and from a different creed 
They are lower Christs of dim expectations 

Goodbye Goodbye 

Sun neck cut 

  


from Alcools, 1913 

Translation copyright Charlotte Mandell 

 Star of my heart, I follow from afar. 
Sweet Love on high, lead on where shepherds are, 
Where Time is not, and only dreamers are. 
Star from of old, the Magi-Kings are dead 
And a foolish Saxon seeks the manger-bed. 
O lead me to Jehovah's child 
Across this dreamland lone and wild, 
Then will I speak this prayer unsaid, 
And kiss his little haloed head — 
"My star and I, we love thee, little child." 

Except the Christ be born again to-night 
In dreams of all men, saints and sons of shame, 
The world will never see his kingdom bright. 
Stars of all hearts, lead onward thro' the night 
Past death-black deserts, doubts without a name, 
Past hills of pain and mountains of new sin 
To that far sky where mystic births begin, 
Where dreaming ears the angel-song shall win. 
Our Christmas shall be rare at dawning there, 
And each shall find his brother fair, 
Like a little child within: 
All hearts of the earth shall find new birth 
And wake, no more to sin.

 Now as at all times I can see in the mind's eye,
In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied ones
Appear and disappear in the blue depth of the sky
With all their ancient faces like rain-beaten stones,
And all their helms of Silver hovering side by side,
And all their eyes still fixed, hoping to find once more,
Being by Calvary's turbulence unsatisfied,
The uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor.

 Far-off, most secret, and inviolate Rose,
Enfold me in my hour of hours; where those
Who sought thee in the Holy Sepulchre,
Or in the wine-vat, dwell beyond the stir
And tumult of defeated dreams; and deep
Among pale eyelids, heavy with the sleep
Men have named beauty. Thy great leaves enfold
The ancient beards, the helms of ruby and gold
Of the crowned Magi; and the king whose eyes
Saw the pierced Hands and Rood of elder rise
In Druid vapour and make the torches dim;
Till vain frenzy awoke and he died; and him
Who met Fand walking among flaming dew
By a grey shore where the wind never blew,
And lost the world and Emer for a kiss;
And him who drove the gods out of their liss,
And till a hundred moms had flowered red
Feasted, and wept the barrows of his dead;
And the proud dreaming king who flung the crown
And sorrow away, and calling bard and clown
Dwelt among wine-stained wanderers in deep woods:
And him who sold tillage, and house, and goods,
And sought through lands and islands numberless years,
Until he found, with laughter and with tears,
A woman of so shining loveliness
That men threshed corn at midnight by a tress,
A little stolen tress. I, too, await
The hour of thy great wind of love and hate.
When shall the stars be blown about the sky,
Like the sparks blown out of a smithy, and die?
Surely thine hour has come, thy great wind blows,
Far-off, most secret, and inviolate Rose?

 "What distillate can be discovered from herbs
of a witching brew," said an aesthete,
"what distillate prepared according
to the formulas of ancient Grecosyrian magi
which for a day (if no longer
its potency can last), or even for a short time
can bring my twenty three years to me
again; can bring my friend of twenty two
to me again -- his beauty, his love.

"What distillate prepared according
to the formulas of ancient Grecosyrian magi
which, in bringing back these things,
can also bring back our little room."