For we are not yet there, you know, although it seems like months have passed we've got another mile to go and then one more, one more... at last upon some distant future day we'll reach the place where we can say: "We did it! Now we have arrived! And most of us are still alive after silent passages through the tedium of time alone." We'll dwell in warmer climes after long March ravages. But first slow April's patient flowers must bloom and bend within their bowers.
Alludes to the "Long March" disaster that forms part of the mythology of the modern Chinese dictatorship. Also alludes to the opening of "The Waste Land" (and by implication, "Canterbury Tales") although obviously much more hopeful in theme than Eliot's great work.