Page:Spring and all - William Carlos Williams.djvu/20

 A terrific confusion has taken place. No man knows whither to turn. There is nothing ! Emptiness stares us once more in the face. Whither? To what end?. Each asks the other. Has life its tail in its mouth or its mouth in its tail ? Why are we here ? Dora Marsden's philosophic algebra. Everywhere men look into each other's faces and ask the old unanswerable question : Whither ? Mow ? What ? Why ?

At any rate, now at last spring is here !

The rock has split, the egg has hatched, the prismatically plumed bird of life has escaped from its cage. It spreads its wings and is perched now on the peak of the huge African mountain Kilimanjaro.

Strange recompense, in the depths of our despair at the unfathomable mist into which all mankind is plunging, a curious force awakens. It is HOPE long asleep, aroused once more. Wilson has taken an army of advisers and sailed for England. The ship has sunk. But the men are all good swimmers. They take the women on their shoulders and buoyed on by the inspiration of the moment they churn the free seas with their sinewey arms, like Ulysses, landing all along the European seaboard.

Yes, hope has awakened once more in men's hearts. It is the NEW ! Let us go forward !