Quatrain 29
Quatrain 29 of 75
“Into this Universe, and why not knowing,
Nor whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing:
And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,
I know not whither, willy-nilly blowing.”
Reflection · Winter
Willy-nilly — FitzGerald's perfect choice: whether you will it or not, and its lightness against the gravity of the subject is entirely intentional. Into the universe without asking. Out of it without knowing where. Against your will or with it: the same arrival, the same departure. The water image is here fully alive — flowing into the world not by direction but by gravity and channel, taking the path the universe has already prepared. You did not choose your birth. The water does not choose its river.
In winter this verse is a companion. The cold strips away the illusions of control that the other seasons allow. You did not choose to be here and you will not choose to leave. Willy-nilly. In the wind and the cold, there is a strange freedom in finally stopping to argue with it.