LINES WRITTEN IN MARCH The joyous scene, recollected in tranquillity, later at a time of leisure, reproduced its poetic feeling, and hence the poem. Another joyous scene is recalled in the lines “Written in March” while resting on the bridge at the foot of Brother’s Water, also in the Lake District: The cock is crowing, […]
Author: Peter Wood
March 2 William Wordsworth
DAFFODILS March, in English poetry, also inevitably recalls Wordsworth and daffodils. In our January programme I hazarded a simple definition of poetry as “an expression of feeling in musical language” . Wordsworth, who knew what he was talking about, prefaced his ‘Lyrical Ballads’ of 1798 with the following account of the poetic process, as he […]
March Poems Index
Title/From Begins Poet Faerie Queene First sturdy March, with brows full sternly bent Edmund Spenser Daffodils I wandered lonely as a cloud William Wordsworth Written in March The cock is crowing, The stream is flowing, William Wordsworth To My Sister It is the first mild day of March William Wordsworth Lines Written in Early […]
March 1 Edmund Spenser
As February was formerly reckoned to be the last month of the year, so March was the first, dedicated to Mars, the god of War, resuming control after the compulsory truce of Winter, but also to the peaceful occupation of seed-sowing. Here is the leader of Spenser’s Pageant: First sturdy March, with brows full sternly […]
February Poems Index
Title/From Begins Poet Parlement of Foules Now welcom somer, with thy sonne softe Geoffrey Chaucer Epithalamium Hail Bishop Valentine! whose day this is; John Donne The Faerie Queen And lastly came cold February, Edmund Spenser Still falls the rain Still falls the rain – Edith Sitwell A Sight In Camp A sight in camp in […]
February 8 Edward Thomas
The Manor Farm Edward Thomas Love of England, common to so many English poets, leads us finally this month to “The Manor Farm” by Edward Thomas: The rock-like mud unfroze a little and rills Ran and sparkled down each side of the road Under the catkins wagging on the hedge. But earth would have her […]
February 7 Rupert Brooke
In contrast Rupert Brooke’s 1914 Sonnets were written earlier in the war when patriotic idealism had not yet been drowned in Flanders’ mud and the inhuman horrors of trench warfare. Brooke’s original analogy of physical and spiritual reintegration after death is memorable: If I should die, think only this of me: That there’s some corner […]
February 6 Sassoon
Does it Matter? Siegfried Sassoon Siegfried Sassoon, an infantry officer of the first World War reacted to the soldier’s predicament with robust and angry satire aimed at ‘scarlet majors at the base’, or civilians safe at home. This poem is still within the copyright period. Link to ‘Does It Matter ?’ Next: 1914 Sonnets Rupert […]
February 5 Walt Whitman
A Sight in Camp The emotion of compassion for the victims of war is also tellingly expressed when Walt Whitman describes a sight in camp during the American Civil War, and here also pity is reinforced by religious feeling: A sight in camp in the daybreak gray and dim, As from my tent I emerge […]
February 4 Edith Sitwell
“ Still falls the rain.” such is the title of a notable poem by Edith Sitwell, which has for sub-title: ” The Raids 1940 Night and Dawn”: so we are back in the dark days of the second World War, in bomb-scarred London. To this poet the rain is symbolic of the martyrdom of Man, […]