March: An ode / A.C. Swinburne

March: An Ode

    I

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 

    fulfil 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 blossomlike 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.

    II

And now that the rage of thy rapture is satiate with revel and ravin and 

    spoil of the snow,
And the branches it brightened are broken, and shattered the tree-tops 

    that only thy wrath could lay low,
How should not thy lovers rejoice in thee, leader and lord of the year that 

    exults to be born
So strong in thy strength and so glad of thy gladness whose laughter puts 

    winter and sorrow to scorn?
Thou hast shaken the snows from thy wings, and the frost on thy forehead 

    is molten: thy lips are aglow
As a lover's that kindle with kissing, and earth, with her raiment and 

    tresses yet wasted and torn,
Takes breath as she smiles in the grasp of thy passion to feel through her 

    spirit the sense of thee flow.

    III

Fain, fain would we see but again for an hour what the wind and the sun 

    have dispelled and consumed,
Those full deep swan-soft feathers of snow with whose luminous burden 

    the branches implumed
Hung heavily, curved as a half-bent bow, and fledged not as birds are, but 

    petalled as flowers,
Each tree-top and branchlet a pinnacle jewelled and carved, or a fountain 

    that shines as it showers,
But fixed as a fountain is fixed not, and wrought not to last till by time or 

    by tempest entombed,
As a pinnacle carven and gilded of men: for the date of its doom is no 

    more than an hour's,

One hour of the sun's when the warm wind wakes him to wither the snow-

    flowers that froze as they bloomed.

    IV

As the sunshine quenches the snowshine; as April subdues thee, and 

    yields up his kingdom to May;

So time overcomes the regret that is born of delight as it passes in passion 

    away,
And leaves but a dream for desire to rejoice in or mourn for with tears or 

    thanksgivings; but thou,
Bright god that art gone from us, maddest and gladdest of months, to 

    what goal hast thou gone from us now?

For somewhere surely the storm of thy laughter that lightens, the beat of 

    thy wings that play,
Must flame as a fire through the world, and the heavens that we know not 

    rejoice in thee: surely thy brow
Hath lost not its radiance of empire, thy spirit the joy that impelled it on 

    quest as for prey.

    V

Are thy feet on the ways of the limitless waters, thy wings on the winds of 

    the waste north sea?
Are the fires of the false north dawn over heavens where summer is 

    stormful and strong like thee
Now bright in the sight of thine eyes? are the bastions of icebergs assailed 

    by the blast of thy breath?
Is it March with the wild north world when April is waning? the word that 

    the changed year saith,
Is it echoed to northward with rapture of passion reiterate from spirits 

    triumphant as we
Whose hearts were uplift at the blast of thy clarions as men's rearisen 

    from a sleep that was death

And kindled to life that was one with the world's and with thine? hast thou 

    set not the whole world free?

    VI

For the breath of thy lips is freedom, and freedom's the sense of thy spirit, 

    the sound of thy song,
Glad god of the north-east wind, whose heart is as high as the hands of thy 

    kingdom are strong,
Thy kingdom whose empire is terror and joy, twin-featured and fruitful of 

    births divine,
Days lit with the flame of the lamps of the flowers, and nights that are 

    drunken with dew for wine,
And sleep not for joy of the stars that deepen and quicken, a denser and 

    fierier throng,
And the world that thy breath bade whiten and tremble rejoices at heart as 

    they strengthen and shine,
And earth gives thanks for the glory bequeathed her, and knows of thy 

    reign that it wrought not wrong.

    VII

Thy spirit is quenched not, albeit we behold not thy face in the crown of 

    the steep sky's arch,
And the bold first buds of the whin wax golden, and witness arise of the 

    thorn and the larch:
Wild April, enkindled to laughter and storm by the kiss of the wildest of 

    winds that blow,
Calls loud on his brother for witness; his hands that were laden with 

    blossom are sprinkled with snow,
And his lips breathe winter, and laugh, and relent; and the live woods feel 

    not the frost's flame parch;
For the flame of the spring that consumes not but quickens is felt at the 

    heart of the forest aglow,
And the sparks that enkindled and fed it were strewn from the hands of 

    the gods of the winds of March.

~~
A.C. Swinburne (1837-1909)
from Poems and Ballads, Third series, 1889

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

A.C. Swinburne biography

"March: An Ode" read by Richard Mitchley. Courtesy The Orchard Enterprises.