March / Edwin Arnold

from The Twelve Months

March

Welcome, North-wind! from the Norland;
Strike upon our foremost foreland,
Sweep away across the moorland,
        Do thy lusty kind!
Thou and we were born together
In the black Norwegian weather;
Birds we be of one brave feather,
        Welcome, bully wind!

Buss us! set our girls' cheeks glowing;
Southern blood asks sun for flowing,
North blood warms when winds are blowing,
        Most of all winds, thou;
There's a sea-smack in thy kisses
Better than all breezy blisses,
So we know, our kinsman this is:
        Buss us! cheek and brow.

Rollick out thy wild sea-catches,
Roar thy stormy mad sea-snatches,
What bare masts and battened hatches
        Thou hast left behind;
Ring it, till our ears shall ring, too,
How thou mad'st the Frenchman bring-to:
That's the music Northmen sing to,
        Burly brother wind!

Go! with train of spray and sea-bird,
Fling the milky waves to leeward,
Drive the ragged rain-clouds seaward,
        Chase the scudding ships;
To the South-wind take our greeting,
Bid him bring the Spring — his Sweeting —
Say what glad hearts wait her meeting,
        What bright eyes and lips.

~~

Edwin Arnold (1832-1904)

from Poems: National and non-oriental, 1906

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Edwin Arnold biography

Robert Henri (1865-1929), The March Wind, ~1902. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.