"Here G. Douglas Atkins presents T.S. Eliot's six "Ariel Poems" as dramatizations of the meaning and significance of Christmas: Journey of the Magi, A Song for Simeon, Animula, Marina, Triumphal March, and The Cultivation of Christmas Trees. Commissioned to commemorate the season, these short poems, of around 40 lines each, considered together emerge as clearly related representations of the "impossible union" that occurred in the Incarnation. In commentary with a narrative drive rhyming with the poems' own progress, Atkins brings the reader along on a "journey toward understanding," to the ultimate Mystery. The fresh, new readings demonstrate the artistic achievement of these remarkable poems"--