William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) was a poet and general practitioner in Patterson, New Jersey, who cared primarily for working-class and immigrant families.

Spring and All [By the road to the contagious hospital]
by William Carlos Williams

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, “By the Road to the Contagious Hospital” from Spring and All. New Directions Publishing, 2011. Shared with the Humanities  Institute by Phillip Barrish, Professor of English and Associate Director for Health and Humanities, UT Humanities Institute.