“March is the month of expectation,
The things we do not know,
The Persons of Prognostication
Are coming now.
We try to sham becoming firmness,
But pompous joy
Betrays us, as his first betrothal
Betrays a boy.”
— Emily Dickinson, XLVIII
The cock is crowing,
The stream is flowing,
The small birds twitter,
The lake doth glitter,
The green field sleeps in the sun;
The oldest and youngest
Are at work with the strongest;
The cattle are grazing,
Their heads never raising;
There are forty feeding like one!
Like an army defeated
The snow hath retreated,
And now doth fare ill
On the top of the bare hill;
The Plowboy is whooping-anon-anon:
There’s joy in the mountains;
There’s life in the fountains;
Small clouds are sailing,
The rain is over and gone!
— William Wordsworth, March
Very old are the woods;
And the buds that break
Out of the brier’s boughs,
When March winds wake,
So old with their beauty are—
Oh, no man knows
Through what wild centuries
Roves back the rose.
Very old are the brooks;
And the rills that rise
Where snow sleeps cold beneath
The azure skies
Sing such a history
Of come and gone,
Their every drop is as wise
As Solomon.
Very old are we men;
Our dreams are tales
Told in dim Eden
By Eve’s nightingales;
We wake and whisper awhile,
But, the day gone by,
Silence and sleep like fields
Of amaranth lie.
— Walter de la Mare, All That’s Past
Where did Gabriel get a lily,
In the month of March,
When the green
Is hardly seen
On the early larch?
Though I know just where they grow,
I have pulled no daffodilly
Where did Gabriel get a lily,
In the month of March?
Could I bring the tardy Spring
Under Her foot’s arch,
Near or far,
The primrose star,
Should bloom with violets, — willy-nilly.
Where did Gabriel get a lily,
In the month of March?
— Grace James, in Country Life
“Daffodils,
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty.”
— William Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale
“Indoors or out, no one relaxes in March, that month of wind and taxes, the wind will presently disappear, the taxes last us all the year.”
— Ogden Nash
“It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.”
— Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
The Waters of March
A stick, a stone, it’s the end of the road
It’s the rest of a stump, it’s a little alone
It’s a sliver of glass, it is life, it’s the sun
It is night, it is death, it’s a trap, it’s a gun
The oak when it blooms, a fox in the brush
The knot in the wood, the song of a thrush
The wood of the wind, a cliff, a fall
A scratch, a lump, it is nothing at all
It’s the wind blowing free, it’s the end of the slope
It’s a beam, it’s a void, it’s a hunch, it’s a hope
And the river bank talks of the waters of March
It’s the end of the strain, It’s the joy in your heart
The foot, the ground, the flesh and the bone
The beat of the road, a slingshot’s stone
A truckload of bricks in the soft morning light
A shot of a gun in the dead of the night
A mile, a must, a thrust, a bump,
It’s a girl, it’s a rhyme, it’s a cold, it’s the mumps
.
The plan of the house, the body in bed
And the car that got stuck, it’s the mud, it’s the mud
A float, a drift, a flight, a wing
A hawk, a quail, oh, the promise of spring
And the river bank talks of the waters of March
It’s the promise of life, it’s the joy in your heart (repeat)
A point, a grain, a bee, a bite
A blink, a buzzard, a sudden stroke of night
A pin, a needle, a sting, a pain
A snail, a riddle, a wasp, a stain
A snake, a stick, it is John, it is Joe
A fish, a flash, a silvery glow
The bed of the well, the end of the line
The dismay on the face, it’s a loss, it’s a find
A spear, a spike, a point, a nail
A drip, drip, drip, drop, the end of the day
And the river bank talks of the waters of March
It’s the promise of life in your heart, in your heart (repeat)
the end of the road, a little alone
A sliver of glass, a life, the sun
A knife, a death, the end of the run
And the river bank talks of the waters of March
It’s the promise of life, it’s the joy in your heart
And the river bank talks of the waters of March
It’s the promise of life, it’s the joy in your heart
The waters of March,
And the river bank talks of the waters of March
It’s the promise of life, it’s the joy in your heart
The waters of March