Poem of the Day: ‘March’

At seventeen, William Cullen Bryant (1794–1878) was already at work on the poem we all used to know, from our old high-school American-literature textbooks, as “Thanatopsis.” We know this poem as “Thanatopsis” — if in fact, we know it at all these days — because in 1817, the editors of the North American Review assigned the title to some random pages that Bryant’s father had picked up from his son’s desk and sent to the Review, along with a selection of his own poems. The poem that put the younger Bryant on the map of American letters first appeared in haphazard fragments, under a title its author never chose, and under the elder Bryant’s name. The resulting editorial embarrassment opened the door for any future submissions by William Cullen Bryant, which on the whole is not a terrible way to establish a literary reputation. And what a reputation Bryant enjoyed during his long life. He was championed by Washington Irving, who orchestrated the publication of Bryant’s “Poems” in Great Britain. His fans included Edgar Allan Poe, who called his use of meter “voluptuous,” and children’s author Mary Mapes Dodge, who said that his poems had “wrought vast and far-reaching good in the world.” Literary history groups him with the Fireside Poets, Longfellow & Co., all of whom were wreaking similarly vast and far-reaching good in the form of digestible ideas rendered in strict meter. Perhaps the vastest and more far-reaching good these poets wrought was simply that in their own lifetimes, millions of people read, memorized, and recited their poems. Their poetry was, for an entire society, a voluntary pleasure. This, too, is not a terrible foundation for a literary reputation. As we read “March,” today’s seasonal Poem of the Day, we might consider it as an example of that particular kind of good. If its language of storm-blasts and plashing rills doesn’t exactly arrest us with its originality or particularity, still these brisk tetrameter abab quatrains blow through their own landscape with the scouring force of the March wind. We can memorize these quatrains readily and recite them with pleasure, savoring the idea of March as a palate-cleanser, the better to taste the bloom of spring when it comes.March by William Cullen Bryant The stormy March is come at last, With wind and cloud, and changing skies, I hear the rushing of the blast, That through the snowy valley flies. Ah, passing few are they who speak, Wild stormy month! in praise of thee; Yet, though thy winds are loud and bleak, Thou art a welcome month to me. For thou, to northern lands, again The glad and glorious sun dost bring, And thou hast joined the gentle train And wear’st the gentle name of Spring. And, in thy reign of blast and storm, Smiles many a long, bright, sunny day, When the changed winds are soft and warm, And heaven puts on the blue of May. Then sing aloud the gushing rills And the full springs, from frost set free, That, brightly leaping down the hills, Are just set out to meet the sea. The year’s departing beauty hides Of wintry storms the sullen threat; But in thy sternest frown abides A look of kindly promise yet. Thou bring’st the hope of those calm skies, And that soft time of sunny showers, When the wide bloom, on earth that lies, Seems of a brighter world than ours. ___________________________________________ With “Poem of the Day,” The New York Sun offers a daily portion of verse selected by Joseph Bottum with the help of the North Carolina poet Sally Thomas, the Sun’s associate poetry editor. Tied to the day, or the season, or just individual taste, the poems will be typically drawn from the lesser-known portion of the history of English verse. In the coming months we will be reaching out to contemporary poets for examples of current, primarily formalist work, to show that poetry can still serve as a delight to the ear, an instruction to the mind, and a tonic for the soul.

Poem of the Day: ‘March’

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