March

Alfred Edward Housman was born on March 26th, 1859, in Fockbury England. He was the oldest of 7 children. He attended St. Johns College, Oxford and was first in his class. In 1911 he became a professor at Trinity College, Cambridge teaching Latin. He held that position as a professor until his death in April of 1936. While he was a professor, he was well known for his editions of the Roman poets Juvenal, Lucan and Manilius. Housman only had two volumes of poetry published during his life, they are A Shopshire Lad (1896) and Last Poems (1922), these were mostly filled with sorrow after his good friend and companion Adalbert Jackson died in 1892. Housman’s third volume More Poems was published after his death by his brother in late 1936. The poem March is very different from most other poems about the month March, Housman wrote his poem tinged with sorrow and how searching for new love brings hardship, where most March poems are about spring, hope and a new beginning.     

MARCH 

By Alfred Edward Housman 

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 want. 

In farm and field through all the shire 

They eye beholds the heart’s desire; 

Ah, let not only mine be vain, 

For lovers should be loved again.