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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
MARCH, by WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Winter is long in this climate Last Line: At fiesole. Subject(s): March (month) | |||
I Winter is long in this climate and spring -- a matter of a few days only, -- a flower or two picked from mud or from among wet leaves or at best against treacherous bitterness of wind, and sky shining teasingly, then closing in black and sudden, with fierce jaws. II 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). At any rate -- I am moved to write poetry for the warmth there is in it and for the loneliness -- a poem that shall have you in it March. III See! Ashur-ban-i-pal, the archer king, on horse-back, in blue and yellow enamel! with drawn bow -- facing lions standing on their hind legs, fangs bared! his shafts bristling in their necks! Sacred bulls -- dragons in embossed brickwork marching -- in four tiers -- along the sacred way to Nebuchadnezzar's throne hall! They shine in the sun, they that have been marching -- marching under the dust of ten thousand dirt years. Now -- they are coming into bloom again! See them! marching still, bared by the storms from my calendar -- winds that blow back the sand! winds that enfilade dirt! winds that by strange craft have whipt up a black army that by pick and shovel bare a procession to the god, Marduk! Natives cursing and digging for pay unearth dragons with upright tails and sacred bulls alternately -- in four tiers -- lining the way to an old altar! Natives digging at old walls -- digging me warmth -- digging me sweet loneliness high enamelled walls. IV My second spring -- passed in a monastery with plaster walls -- in Fiesole on the hill above Florence. My second spring -- painted a virgin -- in a blue aureole sitting on a three-legged stool, arms crossed -- she is intently serious, and still watching an angel with colored wings half kneeling before her -- and smiling -- the angel's eyes holding the eyes of Mary as a snake's hold a bird's. On the ground there are flowers, trees are in leaf. V But! now for the battle! Now for murder -- now for the real thing! My third springtime is approaching! Winds! lean, serious as a virgin, seeking, seeking the flowers of March. Seeking flowers nowhere to be found, they twine among the bare branches in insatiable eagerness -- they whirl up the snow seeking under it -- they -- the winds -- snakelike roar among yellow reeds seeking flowers -- flowers. I spring among them seeking one flower in which to warm myself! I deride with all the ridicule of misery -- my own starved misery. Counter-cutting winds strike against me refreshing their fury! Come, good, cold fellows! Have we no flowers? Defy then with even more desperation than ever -- being lean and frozen! But though you are lean and frozen -- think of the blue bulls of Babylon. Fling yourselves upon their empty roses -- cut savagely! But -- think of the painted monastery at Fiesole. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AND AGAIN, MARCH IS ALMOST HERE by JOHN ASHBERY MARCH: A BIRTHDAY POEM by JOHN UPDIKE IN EARLIEST SPRING by WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS THE SHEPHEARDES CALENDER: MARCH by EDMUND SPENSER TO MY SISTER by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH WRITTEN IN MARCH by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH RETURN by KENNETH SLADE ALLING A CELEBRATION by WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS |
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