{
 "id": "edward-thomas/march",
 "title": "March",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Edward Thomas",
 "poet_slug": "edward-thomas",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Last Poems",
 "book_slug": "last-poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 23,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1918,
  "venue": "Last Poems (1918)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22732"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/edward-thomas_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22423",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22732",
   "https://www.google.com/books/edition/Collected_Poems/LMsEAQAAIAAJ",
   "https://www.google.com/books/edition/Two_Poems/3ycPAAAAQAAJ"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 32,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 57,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Now I know that Spring will come again,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Perhaps to-morrow: however late I’ve patience",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "After this night following on such a day.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "While still my temples ached from the cold burning",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of hail and wind, and still the primroses",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Torn by the hail were covered up in it,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sun filled earth and heaven with a great light",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And a tenderness, almost warmth, where the hail dripped,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As if the mighty sun wept tears of joy.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But ’twas too late for warmth. The sunset piled",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mountains on mountains of snow and ice in the west:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Somewhere among their folds the wind was lost,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And yet ’twas cold, and though I knew that Spring",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Would come again, I knew it had not come,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That it was lost too in those mountains chill.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "What did the thrushes know? Rain, snow, sleet, hail,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Had kept them quiet as the primroses.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They had but an hour to sing. On boughs they sang,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On gates, on ground; they sang while they changed perches",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And while they fought, if they remembered to fight:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So earnest were they to pack into that hour",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their unwilling hoard of song before the moon",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Grew brighter than the clouds. Then ’twas no time",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For singing merely. So they could keep off silence",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And night, they cared not what they sang or screamed;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whether ’twas hoarse or sweet or fierce or soft;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And to me all was sweet: they could do no wrong.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Something they knew⁠—I also, while they sang",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And after. Not till night had half its stars",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And never a cloud, was I aware of silence",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Stained with all that hour’s songs, a silence",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Saying that Spring returns, perhaps to-morrow.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}