March

March was the beginning of the legal year in Great Britain and the Colonies until 1752.
The full moon of March is most often* refered to as Lenten Moon or Worm Moon, and the Roman festival of Anna Perrena was held then.

March is named after the Roman god Mars.

"Whan that month in which the world bigan,
That highte March, whan God first maked man."
Chaucer

Floating Holidays of March
First Sunday after Easter = Quasimodo or Low Sunday.
Save Your Vision Week = First week, Sun thru Sat.
Procrastination Week = First week, Mon thru Sat.
Art Week = Last week, Mon. thru Sat.
Agriculture Day = Third Mon.
Vernal Equinox in northen hemispere, about March 21st.

*Also Sap Moon, Windy Moon, Crow Moon, Crust Moon, Maple Sugar Moon.

March

     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 reminded 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 calender

--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.

William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)

Hilda Doolittle before she began to write poetry or at least before she began to show it to anyone would say: "You're not satisfied with me, are you Billy? There's something lacking, isn't there?" When I was with her my feet always seemed to be sticking to the ground while she would be walking on the tips of the grass stems.

Ten years later as assistant editor of the Egoist she refers to my long poem,March, which thanks to her own and her husband's friendly attentions finally appeared there in a purified form:

14 Aug. 1916
Dear Bill:--

I trust you will not hate me for wanting to delete from your poem all the flippancies. The reason I want to do this is that the beautiful lines are so very beautiful--so in the tone and spirit of your Postlude--(which to me stands, a Nike, supreme among your poems). I think there is real beauty--and real beauty is a rare and sacred thing in this generation--in all the pyramid, Ashur-ban-i-pal bits and in the Fiesole and in the wind at the very last.

I don't know what you think but I consider this business of writing a very sacred thing!--I think you have the "spark"--am sure of it, and when you speak direct are a poet. I feel in the hey-ding-ding touch running through your poem a derivative tendency which, to me, is not you--not your very self. It is as if you were ashamed of your Spirit, ashamed of your inspiration!--as if you mocked at your own song. It's very well to mock at yourself--it is a spiritual sin to mock at your inspiration--
Hilda

Oh well, all this might be very disquieting were it not that "sacred" has lately been discovered to apply to a point of arrest where stabilization has gone on past the time. There is nothing sacred about literature, it is damned from one end to the other. There is nothing in literature but change and change is mockery. I'll write whatever I damn please, whenever I damn please and as I damn please and it'll be good if the authentic spirit of change is on it.

Sources:

Center for Bookculture.org:
http://www.centerforbookculture.org/context/no2/williams.html

Public domain text taken from The Poets' Corner:
http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/wcw-sg1.html#2

CST Approved.

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, A Shropshire Lad
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A march is a stereotypical piece of music for band. Picture any high school marching band in a parade, and they're probably playing a march. Marches are often upbeat, and feature brass instruments heavily, with percussion keeping a strong beat to keep in step, and occasional woodwind solis.

It's generally agreed that the granddaddy of the modern march is John Philip Sousa. It's a rare band that's never played a Sousa march, and it's a good bet that if you've ever been to a Fourth of July¹ parade, you've heard something he wrote.

March (?), n. [L. Martius mensis Mars'month fr. Martius belonging to Mars, the god of war: cf. F. mars. Cf. Martial.]

The third month of the year, containing thirty-one days.

The stormy March is come at last, With wind, and cloud, and changing skies. Bryant.

As mad as a March Hare, an old English Saying derived from the fact that March is the rutting time of hares, when they are excitable and violent.

Wright.

© Webster 1913.

March, n. [OE. marche, F. marche; of German origin; cf. OHG. marcha, G. mark, akin to OS. marka, AS. mearc, Goth. marka, L. margo edge, border, margin, and possibly to E. mark a sign. 106. Cf. Margin, Margrave, Marque, Marquis.]

A territorial border or frontier; a region adjacent to a boundary line; a confine; -- used chiefly in the plural, and in English history applied especially to the border land on the frontiers between England and Scotland, and England and Wales.

Geneva is situated in the marches of several dominions -- France, Savoy, and Switzerland. Fuller.

Lords of waste marches, kings of desolate isles. Tennyson.

© Webster 1913.

March, v. i. [Cf. OF. marchir. See 2d March.]

To border; to be contiguous; to lie side by side.

That was in a strange land Which marcheth upon Chimerie. Gower.

To march with, to have the same boundary for a greater or less distance; -- said of an estate.

© Webster 1913.

March, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Marched (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Marching.] [F. marcher, in OF. also, to tread, prob. fr. L. marcus hammer. Cf. Mortar.]

1.

To move with regular steps, as a soldier; to walk in a grave, deliberate, or stately manner; to advance steadily.

Shak.

2.

To proceed by walking in a body or in military order; as, the German army marched into France.

© Webster 1913.

March, v. t.

TO cause to move with regular steps in the manner of a soldier; to cause to move in military array, or in a body, as troops; to cause to advance in a steady, regular, or stately manner; to cause to go by peremptory command, or by force.

March them again in fair array. Prior.

© Webster 1913.

March, n. [F. marche.]

1.

The act of marching; a movement of soldiers from one stopping place to another; military progress; advance of troops.

These troops came to the army harassed with a long and wearisome march. Bacon.

2.

Hence: Measured and regular advance or movement, like that of soldiers moving in order; stately or deliberate walk; steady onward movement.

With solemn march Goes slow and stately by them. Shak.

This happens merely because men will not bide their time, but will insist on precipitating the march of affairs. Buckle.

3.

The distance passed over in marching; as, an hour's march; a march of twenty miles.

4.

A piece of music designed or fitted to accompany and guide the movement of troops; a piece of music in the march form.

The drums presently striking up a march. Knolles.

To make a march, Card Playing, to take all the tricks of a hand, in the game of euchre.

© Webster 1913.