March + 

Now I know that Spring will come again, + 

Perhaps to-morrow: however late I’ve patience + 

After this night following on such a day. + 

While still my temples ached from the cold burning + 

Of hail and wind, and still the primroses + 

Torn by the hail were covered up in it, + 

The sun filled earth and heaven with a great light + 

And a tenderness, almost warmth, where the hail dripped, + 

As if the mighty sun wept tears of joy. + 

But ’twas too late for warmth. The sunset piled + 

Mountains on mountains of snow and ice in the west: + 

Somewhere among their folds the wind was lost, + 

And yet ’twas cold, and though I knew that Spring + 

Would come again, I knew it had not come, + 

That it was lost too in those mountains chill. + 

What did the thrushes know? Rain, snow, sleet, hail, + 

Had kept them quiet as the primroses. + 

They had but an hour to sing. On boughs they sang, + 

On gates, on ground; they sang while they changed perches + 

And while they fought, if they remembered to fight: + 

So earnest were they to pack into that hour + 

Their unwilling hoard of song before the moon + 

Grew brighter than the clouds. Then ’twas no time + 

For singing merely. So they could keep off silence + 

And night, they cared not what they sang or screamed; + 

Whether ’twas hoarse or sweet or fierce or soft; + 

And to me all was sweet: they could do no wrong. + 

Something they knew⁠—I also, while they sang + 

And after. Not till night had half its stars + 

And never a cloud, was I aware of silence + 

Stained with all that hour’s songs, a silence + 

Saying that Spring returns, perhaps to-morrow. + 