Well-Educated Mind Poetry Reading List discussion

Journey of the Magi was like a reminiscence of the time the wise men went to Bethlehem to find the baby King Jesus. Though specifics are not mentioned, and it is more about the journey, the reader who is familiar with the story of the Magi will know it.

The poem is told from the POV of one of the Magi or someone in the group who went with them. The narrator remembered what it was like to travel in the beginning, in the summer, how they seemed to take their time; but toward the end, as it became winter (or colder w/ snow), they journeyed faster.

The narrator wondered if this experience was about birth (rebirth) or death. It was both. The world had changed after the birth of Christ. And truly, with the birth of Christ (with the entrance of a new religion -- Christianity) the old world had to died and the new world had begun.

I suppose this could also be another reference to the poet's own religious experience from the death of his old life, to the rebirth of his new life after the conversion to the Anglican faith.