Spring and All [By the road to the contagious hospital] by William Carlos Williams (1883 – 1963) I By the road to the contagious hospital under the surge of the blue mottled clouds driven from the northeast-a cold wind. Beyond, the waste of broad, muddy fields brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen patches of standing water the scattering of tall trees All along the road the reddish purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy stuff of bushes and small trees with dead, brown leaves under them leafless vines— Lifeless in appearance, sluggish dazed spring approaches— They enter the new world naked, cold, uncertain of all save that they enter. All about them the cold, familiar wind— Now the grass, tomorrow the stiff curl of wildcarrot leaf One by one objects are defined— It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf But now the stark dignity of entrance—Still, the profound change has come upon them: rooted, they grip down and begin to awaken
William Carlos Williams (1883 – 1963) was a full time practicing family doctor and a celebrated poet. He is said to have practiced medicine by day and written at night. His poems of the modernist movement leave us with images that haunt us with their metaphor and emotion as the mind searches for meaning. The images are simple, but they carry us into the profound. With very few words, he captures an entire story.
In this poem, the images of the dead landscape are replaced by the images of the birth of new life. For me, it is a reminder that as we avoid the “contagious hospital” of the dying, we are also avoiding people who were once newborns full of promise.