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 highprices:
A hard time we had of it.
Comments
Gerbil
on December 15, 2010Off the road travellers – tourists and the like – always have a hard time of it, and hoteliers and taxi drivers take advantage when they know the pressure is on. In New York City recently hotel and flophouse guests have been subjected to the indignity of bedbug infestation. At least baby Jesus and his surprised happy parents didn’t have to put up with that. I’d say the donkey and cattle in that stable were self respecting animals who tried to keep clean according to their instinctive understanding of the hygiene concept. The hired camel caravan drivers weren’t awaiting anything special – they’d have taken on the same lousy ride across the desert landscape for a gang of cannabis smugglers from Afghanistan if the money offered had been right. Did they help to spread the clap by frequenting the Bethlehem and other whorehouses? Had they lived for another thirty years they might have seen a bearded man preaching renewed life in the villages and on a mountain side, and they might have died peacefully in their beds after repenting their loose earlier lives. Who knows? Eliot’s blank verse ends at wonder and the hint of epiphany. Whatever happened later is a blank.
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