"With rushing winds and gloomy skies The dark and stubborn winter dies; Far-off, unseen, Spring faintly cries, Bidding her earliest child arise: March!" - Bayard Taylor
The month of March brings many things to mind: Lent and Spring, St. Patrick's Day with its Irish songs and singing, the ides of March and thoughts of Caesar. Daffodils and crocuses appear and we hear poetry.
"I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze." From I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by William Wordsworth
March takes its name from Mars, an ancient Roman deity commonly regarded as the god of war, but, according to some authorities, he was originally the god of vegetation. The old Saxon name for March was Hlydmonath, meaning boisterous month. March was the first month of the Roman year until the adoption of the Julian calendar in 41 BC. It was the first month of the year in France until 1564 when Charles IX decreed that January should be the first month. March continued to be the beginning of the legal year in England and its colonies until the eighteenth century. England, by act of parliament, adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752 changing the first month of the year from March to January, which helps to explain why our September and October are the ninth and tenth months instead of the seventh and eighth as their names would signify.
March has always had 31 days. In designating days the early Romans reckoned backwards from three fixed points, the calends, the nones, and the ides. The calends were always the first day of the month. The nones were the ninth or seventh day before the ides: the ides fell on the 15th in March, May, July and October; in other months it fell on the 13th. The old saying, "Mad as a March hare," alludes to the effect of the burgeoning of spring upon the temperament of the animal, as it is the mating season.
Although March has no official holidays in this country, she holds many special days and observances. March 1 is St. David's Day in Wales, which we celebrate in our family for grandson David and for our Welsh blood. The Vernal Equinox, marking the beginning of Spring, occurs on March 20 when the sun's center is over the equator and day and night everywhere are of the same length.
"And the Spring arose on the garden fair, Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere; And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breast Rose from the dreams of its wintry rest." - Percy Bysshe Shelley
With Ash Wednesday falling on the last day of February this year, the whole month of March is in Lent. Its somber and penitent mood can be felt in Eliot's poetry:
"This is the time of tension between dying and birth The place of solitude where three dreams cross Between blue rocks But when the voices shaken from the yew-tree drift away Let the other yew be shaken and reply.... Teach us to care and not to care Teach us to sit still Even among these rocks, Our peace in His will And even among these rocks.... Suffer me not to be separated And let my cry come unto Thee."
-- From Ash Wednesday by T. S. Eliot