" A cold coming we had of it.
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey , and such a long 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 nigh-fires going out , and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
And 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 heating the
darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
An an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we cam 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 information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place: it was ( you may say ) satisfactory.
All the 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 an 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 , out 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.
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