Part 9

For March there come violets, especially the single blue, which are the earliest; the early daffodil, the daisy, the almond tree in blossom, the peach tree in blossom, the cornelian (dogwood) tree in blossom, sweetbrier.

Bacon.

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A frosty winter, and a dusty March, And a rain about Aperill, And another about the Lammas time When the corn begins to fill, Is worth a ploughy of gold And all her pins theretill.

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Come gather the crocus-cups with me, And dream of the summer coming; Saffron, and purple, and snowy white, All awake to the first bees humming.

The white is there for the maiden-heart, And the purple is there for sorrow; The saffron is there for the true true love, And they'll all be dead to-morrow.

Sebastian Evans.

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Beside the garden path the crocus now Puts forth its head to woo the genial breeze, And finds the snowdrop, hardier visitant, Already basking in the solar ray. Upon the brooke the water cresses float More greenly, and the bordering reeds exalt Higher their speary summits. Joyously, From stone to stone, the ouzel flits along, Startling the linnet from the hawthorn bough; While on the elm-tree, overshadowing deep The low-roofed cottage white, the blackbird sits Cheerily hymning the awakened year.

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Blank earth-baldness clothes itself afresh, And breaks into the crocus-purple hour.

Tennyson.

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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.

C. Rossetti.

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If it does not freeze on the tenth of March a fertile year may be expected.

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In March is good graffing, the skilful do know, So long as the wind in the east do not blow: From moon being changed, till past be the prime, For graffing and cropping is very good time.

Tusser.

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In March and in April, from morning to night, In sowing and setting good huswives delight: To have in a garden or other like plot, To trim up their house, and to furnish their pot.

Tusser.

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TO THE DAFFODIL.

O Love-star of the unbeloved March, When cold and shrill, Forth flows beneath a low dim-lighted arch The wind that beats sharp crag and barren hill, And keeps unfilmed the lately torpid rill!

Herald and harbinger! with thee Begins the year's great jubilee! Of her solemnities sublime (A sacristan whose gusty taper Flashes through earliest morning vapour) Thou ring'st dark nocturns and dim prime. Birds that have yet no heart for song Gain strength with thee to twitter, And, warm at last, where hollies throng, The mirror'd sunbeams glitter.