March.

Slayer of the winter, art thou here again?
O welcome, thou that’s bring’st the summer nigh!
The bitter wind makes not thy victory vain,
Nor will we mock thee for thy faint blue sky.
Welcome, O March! whose kindly days and dry
Make April ready for the throstle’s song,
Thou first redresser of the winter’s wrong!
                                                  -   William Morris   (1834 – 1896)

  Happy New Year!

Well it would have been.

Until 1752, when we changed to the new fangled Gregorian calendar, March was the beginning of the calendar year, something that hailed back to the Romans. The word, ‘March’ comes from the Roman ‘Martius’, the month being named after Mars the god of war.

   The Anglo-Saxons had  different names for it. They called it, ‘Hlyd monath’, which means ‘Stormy month’ or, ‘Hraed monath’, which means, ‘Rugged month’. The weather figures a lot in the sayings about this month;

‘When March comes in like a lion it goes out like a lamb, but if it comes in like a lamb it will go out like a lion.’

               ‘A dry march and a wet May

               Fill barns and bays

               With corn and hay.’

                                              ‘As it rains in March, so it rains in June.’

                ‘March winds and April showers

                 Bring forth May flowers.’

Botanists tell us that the powerful winds of March are needed not only to aid early pollination of plants, but also to allow the trunks and main branches of trees to be flexed, which helps the flow of sap to be drawn up to nourish the budding leaves.

            The afternoon is bright,                  
       with spring in the air,
       a mild March afternoon,
      with the breath of April stirring,
      I am alone in the quiet patio
looking for some old untried illusion -
some shadow on the whiteness of  the  wall
some memory asleep
on the stone rim of the fountain,
perhaps in the air

the light swish of some trailing gown.

                                            -   Antonio Machado, 1875-1939

                                                                       XLVIII

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 (1830-1866).

 Ode To March.

Ere frost-flower and snow-blossom faded and fell, 
       and the splendour of winter had passed out of sight,
The ways of the woodlands were fairer and stranger 
       than dreams that fulfill us in sleep with delight;
The breath of the mouths of the winds had hardened on tree-tops 
       and branches that glittered and swayed
Such wonders and glories of blossom like snow 
       or of frost that outlightens all flowers till it fade
That the sea was not lovelier than here was the land, 
       nor the night than the day, nor the day than the night,
Nor the winter sublimer with storm than the spring: 
       such mirth had the madness and might in thee made,
March, master of winds, bright minstrel and marshal of storms
        that enkindle the season they smite.

                                                 -   Algernon C. Swinburne (1837 – 1909) 

 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 (1902 – 1971)