March

“ I read a deeper meaning in my garden book as the boys' human calendar runs parallel with it, and I can see month by month and day by day that it is truly the touch of Nature that makes kindred of us all—the throb of the human heart and not the touch of learning or the arts.
Everything grows restless as spring comes on—animate, and what is called inanimate, nature. March is the trying month of indecision, the tug-of-war between winter and spring, pulling us first one way and then the other, the victory often being, until the final moment, on the side of winter. ”

“ There is that in June which has a time-defying magic: May has her sweet affinities with Spring in the human heart: in April are the flutes of Pan: March is stormy with the clarions of the winds: October can be wild with all wildness or be the calm mirror of the passing of the loveliness of the green-world. ”

“ Be his, who from the farm-field spoke
A word for Freedom when her need
Was not of dulcimer and reed.
This Isthmian wreath of pine and oak.
THE WIND OF MARCH. Up from the sea, the wild north wind is blowing
Under the sky's gray arch;
Smiling, I watch the shaken elm-boughs, knowing
It is the wind of March.
Between the passing and the coming season,
This stormy interlude
Gives to our winter-wearied hearts a reason
For trustful gratitude.
Welcome to waiting ears its harsh forewarning
Of light and warmth to come,
The longed-for joy of Nature's Easter morning,
The earth arisen in bloom. ”

“ March in Marbridge used to mean violets and daffodils, tender green shoots and balmy middays. March here means days of pale clean light and great sweeping wind which chased grey clouds across a steely sky, and stirred the lust for fight and freedom in men's minds and set them longing to be up and away and at battle with the world or the elements. ”

“ The sun crosses the line; the days grow a minute longer: spring will come by and by. But by what cruel irony was the month of March ever called spring?—March, which piles snow-storms and wind-storms on backs almost broken by endurance. The long agony of March and April is the breaking-point with many a delicate person who has borne pretty well the regular winter. ”

“ March is a month when the needle of my nature dips towards the country. I am away, greeting everything as it wakes out of winter sleep, stretches arms upward and legs downward, and drinks goblet after goblet of young sunshine. ”

“ She fills the fields with strength and passion—makes A fire of lustre on the lawn-ringed lakes; Her beauty awes the great wild sea; the height Of grey magnificence takes strange delight And softens at her presence, at the dear Sweet face whose memory beams through all the year. March Clear upland voices, full of wind and stream, Greet March, the sister of the flying beam And speedy shadow. She, with rainbow crowned, Lives in a sphere of songs of mazy sound. The hymn of waters and the gale's high tone, With anthems from the thunder's mountain throne, Are with her ever. ”

“ Our April, at its best, is a bright, laughing face under a hood of snow, like the English March, but presenting sharper contrasts, a greater mixture of smiles and tears and icy looks than are known to our ancestral climate. ”

“ You can be winter with a cheerful hearth; You can be March, bitter, bright and hard, Pouring sharp sleet, and showering cutting hail; You can be April of the flying cloud, And intermittent sun and musical air. ”

“ It was a day late on in March—one of those days not unfrequent at that season, especially in the south and west—a day that seems filled with a promise of coming summer—a day in which all nature rejoices, which stirs the pulses and sets the blood coursing joyously, and fills the air with subtle promises of life and hope. ”

“ In March, what so delicious as breasting together the brave wind, and feeling it tingle our cheeks and beat our ears till we laughed at each other with joy? In rain, what so delicious as to stand under a tree or behind a hedge and listen to the drops pattering overhead among the leaves, and see the fields steaming up to meet them? ”

“ And yet, methinks this northern Spring is fair,-
These fields made golden with the flower of March,
The throstle singing on the feathered larch,
The cawing rooks, the wood-doves fluttering by,
The little clouds that race across the sky ”

“ Give voice round the farmsteads, and course o’er the moors,
With a hundred detours,
Till they leap on the forests, whose branches are rent.
I heap up the snowdrifts, bind firmer the streams,
And defy the sun’s beams.
My heart throbs with hate, and all tenderness spurning,
With winter again I span heaven’s blue arch.
I am passionate March.
APRIL.
I am the month of transition. ”

“ Winter is still with us, but the winds bring signs of awakening from afar. March ... the month of fevers and commotions. On the earth fatigue and restlessness chase each other. Flooded rivers race along. ”

“ March, march! ye are sons of the Roman, The sound of whose step was as fate to the foeman! Whose realm, save the air and the wave, had no wall, As he strode through the world like a lord in his hall; Though your fame hath sunk down to the night of the grave, It shall rise from the field like the sun from the wave. Breeze fill our banners, sun gild our spears, Spirito Santo, Cavaliers! Blow, trumpets, blow, Blow, trumpets, blow, Gaily to glory we come; Like a king in his pomp, To the blast of the tromp, And the roar of the mighty drum! ”

“ March, as we all know, is the eldest daughter of Winter, and bitterly like her grim sire. The snow which has melted from the uplands lingers in the valleys; the storms, and the cloudy skies, and the rushing blasts mark the sullen retreat of winter ”

“ March,
you remind me of
the pyramids, our pyramids—
stript of the polished stone
that used to guard them!
March, you are like Fra Angelico
at Fiesole, painting on plaster!
March,
you are like a band of
young poets that have not learned
the blessedness of warmth
(or have forgotten it) . ”

“ We have trod from the threshold of turbulent March,
Till the green scarf of April is hung on the larch,
And down the bright hillside that welcomes the day,
We hear the warm panting of beautiful May.
We will part before Summer has opened her wing,
And the bosom of June swells the bodice of Spring,
While the hope of the season lies fresh in the bud,
And the young life of Nature runs warm in our blood.
It is but a word, and the chain is unbound,
The bracelet of steel drops unclasped to the ground ”

“ To be pecked at by every wind that blows?
You would not peck? I thank you for good will,
Believe, but leave that truth untested still.
⁠Spring's an expansive time: yet I don't trust
March with its peck of dust,
Nor April with its rainbow-crowned brief showers,
Nor even May, whose flowers
One frost may wither through the sunless hours. ”

“ But the blustering days of March give way in due time to showery April, and then, with more courage, "chip" faces the music of the winds, blow they from whatever quarter, and darting along the top rail of our zigzag fences, chatters, scolds, and calls at and to his equally noisy companions. ”

“ March will bluster, April will weep; May will smile through her tears by day and freeze us with her frosts at night, and July will stupefy us with thunderstorms, and August scorch us with heat one day and drench us to the skin the next. ”

“ It is March in England, bleak March, and I lie here with the great sliding doors wide open in an undershirt and p'jama trousers, and melt in the closure of mosquito bars, and burn to be out in the breeze. A few torn clouds - not white, the sun has tinged them a warm pink - swim in heaven. In which blessed and fair day, I have to make faces and speak bitter words to a man - who has deceived me, it is true - but who is poor, and older than I, and a kind of a gentleman too. ”

“ March shewed some pale gleams of spring, but April was one of the coldest and dreariest in the memory of living man. The old earth in sympathy with the great struggle that was devastating and searing her, seemed to be withholding leaf and flower, and forbidding the sun to woo her. ”

“ It was March, and the sun was growing very powerful. In the hot hours she would lie in the shade of the trees, or she would even go down to the depths of the cool lemon grove. The child ran in the distance, like a young animal absorbed in life. ”

“ March arbitrarily distinguished those with the drooping faces as tipsy and ashamed to confront the public. The small Italian children raced up and down the asphalt paths, playing American games of tag and hide-and-whoop; larger boys passed ball, in training for potential championships. The Marches sat and mused, or quarrelled fitfully about where they should spend the summer, like sparrows, he once said, till the electric lights began to show distinctly among the leaves, and they looked round and found the infants and dotards gone and the benches filled with lovers. ”

“ Come now, like Pan's old crew we'll dance and sing, Or Oberon's, for hill and valley ring To March's bugle horn—earth's blood is stirred."
March has indeed come; boisterous, wild, terrible, in many ways, but lovely in others. There is a freshness in the air that rouses glad thoughts within the breast, vague thoughts, sweet, as undefinable, and that yet mean life. The whole land seems to have sprung up from a long slumber, and to be looking with wide happy eyes upon the fresh marvels Nature is preparing for it. ”

“ There are frequently mornings in March, when a lover of nature may enjoy, in a stroll, sensations not to be exceeded, or, perhaps, equalled by any thing which the full glory of summer can awaken:—mornings, which tempt us to cast the memory of winter, or the fear of its recurrence out of our thoughts. ”

“ March holds February very tightly by the hand, and cannot make up her mind to hurry on with her work of opening the buds and encouraging the flowers. She blows cold winds in their faces, nips them with frosty nights, occasionally wraps them up in snow, then suddenly, repenting her of the evil, she opens up a blue sky and pours a hot sun down on them. ”

“ March safely at home, busy with his books and the small parish which found in him a minister by nature as by grace,—a quiet, studious man, rich in the wisdom that is better than learning, the charity which calls all mankind "brother," the piety that blossoms into character, making it august and lovely. ”

“ On this 15th night of March, the heavens once again proclaim that spring indeed will come. Beneath the shroud of haze one is able to catch fleeting glimpses of lightning, followed by the inevitable and distant roar of thunder. Each day possesses a unique beauty ”

“ Whether the setting sun steeps the current in liquid, tremulous light, or the wild, tempestuous blasts of January heap up the waters in dark and chaffing masses, all is beautiful; and men go forth to gaze in quiet enjoyment on the peaceful flow of July, or to enrich and stimulate their feelings with the all-conquering power of the down-rushing torrent of March. ”

“ I have tried to describe this Mariout country as it is at the beginning of March, when the earth makes her great effort. In a few days the wind may scratch and tear the blossoms, in a few weeks the sun will scorch the leaves. ”

“ March, there ain't anything like a home, is there? Dear little cot of your own, heigh? I tell you, March, when I get to pushing that mower round, and the colonel is smoking his cigar in the gallery, and those girls are pottering over the flowers, one of these soft evenings after dinner, I feel like a human being. Yes, I do. I struck it rich when I concluded to take my meals at the widow's. For eight dollars a week I get good board, refined society, and all the advantages of a Christian home. By-the-way, you've never had much talk with Miss Woodburn, have you, March? ”

“ March, having come in like a lion, is going out like a lamb. A canary-bird, intoxicated with the ambrosial breath and subduing sunshine of the first mild day of spring, is pouring forth such a Te Deum laudamus as Mozart himself would have despaired of rivalling. ”

“ The country ever has a lagging Spring,
Waiting for May to call its violets forth,
And June its roses--showers and sunshine bring,
Slowly, the deepening verdure o'er the earth;
To put their foliage out, the woods are slack,
And one by one the singing-birds come back.
Within the city's bounds the time of flowers
Comes earlier. Let a mild and sunny day,
Such as full often, for a few bright hours,
Breathes through the sky of March the airs of May,
Shine on our roofs and chase the wintry gloom--
And lo! our borders glow with sudden bloom. ”

“ In vain one protests that one is really in a great hurry; that unless these flower-beds are made, unless yonder piece of ground is got ready for grass-sowing, March will be upon us, and close at its heels, April ”

“ A month of which, whenever we would announce ruin to a man, we say, Go, March has shaved you!' A month of which, when you want to call a man presumptuous, you say, What cares March?' A month in short so hateful, that it would be the best fortune for the world, the greatest blessing to the earth, the greatest gain to men, were it excluded from the band of brothers. ”

“ Along this track travel the chiffchaffs and wheatears in March, the martins, warblers, and all the singing hosts in April. Sometimes the night wind bears a million feeble cries as the tired travellers pass over. It is a place of enthralling wonder in the youth of the year—and of sadness when autumnal days bring a weary return. ”

“ March On march on all
hearts resolved On liberty or death.
2 With luxury and pride surrounded, The vile in
satiate despots dare, Their thirst for gold and power unbounded,
To mete and vend the light and air! To mete and vend the
light and air! Like beasts of burden they load us
Like god would bid their slaves adore; But man is man and who is more? ”