March / Rebecca Hey

March

Could sullen Winter, in his mid career,
Call from his magazine of storm and cloud
A ruder gale than this? How shrill, how loud,
Its angry dissonance assails the ear!
Where be those tokens now which late did cheer
The trusting heart with hopes that Spring was nigh?
Ah! as I gaze around, earth, sea, and sky,
In mournful cadence, seem to answer "Where?"
Yet wait we patiently a little while —
The boon for which we sigh is but delay'd;
So sure as Nature's summer charms did fade
At Autumn's touch, so sure at Spring's sweet smile
Shall trees again bud forth, and flowers unfold,
"And all be vernal rapture as of old."

~~
Rebecca Hey (1797-1867)

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Rebecca Hey bibliography

To My Sister / William Wordsworth

                                            Lines
        written at a small distance from my house, and sent
by my little boy to the person to whom they are addressed.

It is the first mild day of March:
Each minute sweeter than before,
The red-breast sings from the tall larch
That stands beside our door.

There is a blessing in the air,
Which seems a sense of joy to yield
To the bare trees, and mountains bare,
And grass in the green field.

My Sister! (’tis a wish of mine)
Now that our morning meal is done,
Make haste, your morning task resign;
Come forth and feel the sun.

Edward will come with you, and pray,
Put on with speed your woodland dress,
And bring no book, for this one day
We’ll give to idleness.

No joyless forms shall regulate
Our living Calendar:
We from to-day, my friend, will date
The opening of the year.

Love, now an universal birth.
From heart to heart is stealing,
From earth to man, from man to earth,
—It is the hour of feeling.

One moment now may give us more
Than fifty years of reason;
Our minds shall drink at every pore
The spirit of the season.

Some silent laws our hearts may make,
Which they shall long obey;
We for the year to come may take
Our temper from to-day.

And from the blessed power that rolls
About, below, above;
We’ll frame the measure of our souls,
They shall be tuned to love.

Then come, my sister! come, I pray,
With speed put on your woodland dress,
And bring no book; for this one day
We’ll give to idleness.

~~

William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

from Lyrical Ballads, 1798

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

William Wordsworth biography

March / A.E. Housman

X

March

The sun at noon to higher air,
Unharnessing the silver Pair
That late before his chariot swam,
Rides on the gold wool of the Ram.

So braver notes the storm-cock sings
To start the rusted wheel of things,
And brutes in field and brutes in pen
Leap that the world goes round again.

The boys are up the woods with day
To fetch the daffodils away,
And home at noonday from the hills
They bring no dearth of daffodils.

Afield for palms the girls repair,
And sure enough the palms are there,
And each will find by hedge or pond
Her waving silver-tufted wand.

In farm and field through all the shire
The eye beholds the heart's desire;
Ah, let not only mine be vain,
For lovers should be loved again.

~~
A.E. Housman (1859-1936)
from A Shropshire Lad, 1896

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

A.E. Housman biography

March / Edmund Spenser

from The Shepheardes Calender, 1579:

March. Æglgoga Tertia

ARGUMENT. In this Æglogue two shepheards boyes, taking occasion of the season, beginne to make purpose of love, and other pleasaunce which to springtime is most agreeable. The speciall meaning hereof is to give certaine markes and tokens to know Cupide, the poets god of love. But more particularlye. I thinke, in the person of Thomalin is meant some secrete freend, who scorned Love and his knights so long, till at length him selfe was entangled, and unwares wounded with the dart of some beautifull regard, which is Cupides arrow.

WILLYE. THOMALIN.

Wil. Thomalin, why sytten we soe,
As weren overwent with woe,
    Upon so fayre a morow?
The joyous time now nigheth fast,
That shall alegge this bitter blast,
    And slake the winters sorowe.

Tho. Sicker, Willye, thou warnest well:
For winters wrath beginnes to quell,
    And pleasant spring appeareth.
The grasse nowe ginnes to be refresht,
The swallow peepes out of her nest,
    And clowdie welkin cleareth.

Wil. Seest not thilke same hawthorne studde,
How bragly it beginnes to budde,
    And utter his tender head?
Flora now calleth forth eche flower,
And bids make ready Maias bowre,
    That newe is upryst from bedde.
Tho shall we sporten in delight,
And learne with Lettice to wexe light,
    That scornefully lookes askaunce;
Tho will we little Love awake,
That nowe sleepeth in Lethe lake,
    And pray him leaden our daunce.

Tho. Willye, I wene thou bee assott:
For lustie Love still sleepeth not,
    But is abroad at his game.

Wil. How kenst thou that he is awoke?
Or hast thy selfe his slomber broke?
    Or made previe to the same?

Tho. No, but happely I hym spyde,
Where in a bush he did him hide,
    With winges of purple and blewe.
And were not that my sheepe would stray,
The previe marks I would bewray,
    Whereby by chaunce I him knewe.

Wil. Thomalin, have no care forthy;
My selfe will have a double eye,
    Ylike to my flocke and thine:
For als at home I have a syre,
A stepdame eke, as whott as fyre,
    That dewly adayes counts mine.

Tho. Nay, but thy seeing will not serve,
My sheepe for that may chaunce to swerve,
    And fall into some mischiefe.
For sithens is but the third morowe
That I chaunst to fall a sleepe with sorowe,
    And waked againe with griefe:
The while thilke same unhappye ewe,
Whose clouted legge her hurt doth shewe,
    Fell headlong into a dell,
And there unjoynted both her bones:
Mought her necke bene joynted attones,
    She shoulde have neede no more spell.
Thelf was so wanton and so wood,
(But now I trowe can better good)
    She mought ne gang on the greene.

Wil. Let be, as may be, that is past:
That is to come, let be forecast.
Now tell us what thou hast seene.

Tho. It was upon a holiday,
When shepheardes groomes han leave to play,
    I cast to goe a shooting.
Long wandring up and downe the land,
With bowe and bolts in either hand,
    For birds in bushes tooting,
At length within an yvie todde
(There shrouded was the little god)
    I heard a busie bustling.
I bent my bolt against the bush,
Listening if any thing did rushe,
    But then heard no more rustling.
Tho peeping close into the thicke,
Might see the moving of some quicke,
    Whose shape appeared not:
But were it faerie, feend, or snake,
My courage earnd it to awake,
    And manfully thereat shotte.
With that sprong forth a naked swayne,
With spotted winges like peacocks trayne,
    And laughing lope to a tree,
His gylden quiver at his backe,
And silver bowe, which was but slacke,
    Which lightly he bent at me.
That seeing I, levelde againe,
And shott at him with might and maine,
    As thicke as it had hayled.
So long I shott that al was spent:
Tho pumie stones I hastly hent,
    And threwe; but nought availed:
He was so wimble and so wight,
From bough to bough he lepped light,
    And oft the pumies latched.
Therewith affrayd I ranne away:
But he, that earst seemd but to playe,
    A shaft in earnest snatched,
And hit me running in the heele:
For then, I little smart did feele;
    But soone it sore encreased.
And now it ranckleth more and more,
And inwardly it festreth sore,
    Ne wote I how to cease it.

Wil. Thomalin, I pittie thy plight.
Perdie, with Love thou diddest fight:
    I know him by a token.
For once I heard my father say,
How he him caught upon a day,
    (Whereof he wilbe wroken)
Entangled in a fowling net,
Which he for carrion crowes had set,
    That in our peeretree haunted.
Tho sayd, he was a winged lad,
But bowe and shafts as then none had,
    Els had he sore be daunted.
But see, the welkin thicks apace,
And stouping Phebus steepes his face:
    Yts time to hast us homeward.

~~
Edmund Spenser (1552-1599)
from Complete Poetical Works, 1908

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Edmund Spenser biography

Beeny Cliff / Thomas Hardy

Beeny Cliff

March 1870 - March 1913

    I

O the opal and the sapphire of that wandering western sea,
And the woman riding high above with bright hair flapping free –
The woman whom I loved so, and who loyally loved me.

    II

The pale mews plained below us, and the waves seemed far away
In a nether sky, engrossed in saying their ceaseless babbling say,
As we laughed light-heartedly aloft on that clear-sunned March day.

    III

A little cloud then cloaked us, and there flew an irised rain,
And the Atlantic dyed its levels with a dull misfeatured stain,
And then the sun burst out again, and purples prinked the main.

    IV

– Still in all its chasmal beauty bulks old Beeny to the sky,
And shall she and I not go there once again now March is nigh,
And the sweet things said in that March say anew there by and by?

    V

What if still in chasmal beauty looms that wild weird western shore,
The woman now is – elsewhere – whom the ambling pony bore,
And nor knows nor cares for Beeny, and will laugh there nevermore.

~~
Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)
from Satires of Circumstance, 1914

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

Thomas Hardy biography

J.B. Corot / John Payne

J.B. Corot

(Died 22nd February 1875)

Before the earliest violet he died,
Who loved the new green and the stress of spring
So tenderly. He knew that March must bring
The primrose by the brook and all the wide
Green spaces of the forest glorified
With scent and singing, when each passing wing
Would call him and each burst of blossoming:
He knew he could not die in the springtide.
Yet he was weary, for his task was done
And sleep seemed sweet unto the tired eyes:
Weary! for many a year he had seen the sun
Arise; so in the season of the snows
He put off life — ere spring could interpose
To hold him back — and went where Gautier lies.

~~
John Payne (1842-1916)
from New Poems, 1880

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

John Payne biography 

There Is No Cold in Christ / AE Reiff

There Is No Cold in Christ

There is no cold in Christ nor winter storm

To chill the bone, there is no frost in him,

No freeze there kills the stem, no ice brings harm.

He lives in us to keep his branches warm,

A green tree ever rooted deep within,

There is no cold in Christ nor winter storm.

There where the harvest hills through summer run

to fall, he keeps a barn, a winter bin,

no freeze there kills the stem, no ice brings harm.

He has into them, all his flowers, sown

A seeding of himself, garden within,

There is no cold in Christ nor winter storm.

He there, a gardener in his lovely plants

forms protoplasm and a living mind,

no freeze there kills the stem, no ice brings harm.

The Rose of Nazareth, Lord to flesh was born,

Accept his seed, sons, daughters, women, men,

There is no cold in Christ nor winter storm,

No freeze there kills the stem, no ice brings harm.

~~

AE Reiff, 2021

[All rights reserved by the author - Used with permission]

AE Reiff biography

March / Mary Mapes Dodge

March

In the snowing and the blowing,
    In the cruel sleet,
Little flowers begin their growing
    Far beneath our feet.

Softly taps the Spring, and cheerly,—
    "Darlings, are you here?"
Till they answer, "We are nearly,
    Nearly ready, dear."

"Where is Winter, with his snowing?
    Tell us, Spring," they say.
Then she answers, "He is going,
    Going on his way.

"Poor old Winter does not love you;
    But his time is past;
Soon my birds shall sing above you;—
    Set you free at last."

~~

Mary Mapes Dodge (1831-1905)

from Rhymes and Jingles, 1875

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Mary Mapes Dodge biography

March's featured poem

The Penny Blog's featured poem for March 2022:

A Light exists in Spring, by Emily Dickinson

A Light exists in Spring
Not present on the Year
At any other period —
When March is scarcely here
[...]

https://gdancesbetty.blogspot.com/2011/03/light-exists-in-spring-emily-dickinson.html 

Penny's Top 20 / February 2022

            

Penny's Top 20

The most-visited poems on  The Penny Blog in February 2022:

  1.  Februarie, Edmund Spenser

  2.  Hymn, Jack Kerouac

  3.  Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens

  4.  Upon Julia's Clothes, Robert Herrick

  5.  In February, John Addington Symonds
  6.  Not marble nor the gilded monuments, William Shakespeare
  7.  Birches, Robert Frost

  8.  My True Love Hath My Heart, Philip Sidney
  9.  February, Jane G. Austin
10.  A Midwinter Night's Eve, George J. Dance

11.  Skating, William Wordsworth
12.  Winter Song, Elizabeth Tollet
13.  Afternoon in February, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
14.  Bird Cage, Hector de Saint Denys Garneau
15.  Card Game, Frank Prewett
16.  Poem with Rhythms, Wallace Stevens
17.  The Months, Sara Coleridge

18.  Sunlight, AE Reiff
19.  Penny, George J. Dance

20. The Man with the Blue Guitar, Wallace Stevens

Source: Blogger, "Stats"