Top 10 Best Poems for March
 |
| Best Poems for March |
To build this “Top 10,” I leaned on well-known curated lists and magazine selections (notably Poetry Foundation’s seasonal collections and widely shared “March poems” roundups), then chose poems that show up repeatedly and genuinely capture the March experience: change, restlessness, and that bright, shaky hope.
What are the best March poems in the English language? Here are ten of our favourites.
(Each pick includes: a short excerpt, a quick author bio, and a personal-style preview of what it feels like to read it in March.)
1. “Dear March—Come in—” (c. 1862)
by Emily Dickinson
Author Bio
Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) lived most of her life in Amherst, Massachusetts. Though she wrote nearly 1,800 poems, fewer than a dozen were published during her lifetime. Her compressed syntax, unconventional punctuation, and spiritual intensity reshaped American poetry in the twentieth century.
Full Text
Dear March—Come in—
How glad I am—
I hoped for you before—
Put down your Hat—
You must have walked—
How out of Breath you are—
Dear March, how are you, and the Rest—
Did you leave Nature well—
Oh March, Come right upstairs with me—
I have so much to tell—
I got your Letter, and the Birds—
The Maples never knew
That you were coming—I declare—
How Red their Faces grew—
But March, forgive me—and
All those Hills you left for me to Hue—
There was no Purple suitable—
You took it all with you—
Who knocks? That April.
Lock the Door—
I will not be pursued—
He stayed away a Year to call
When I am occupied—
But trifles look so trivial
As soon as you have come
That blame is just as dear as Praise
And Praise as mere as Blame—
Extended Preview
This poem feels like the first true shift in the air. Dickinson doesn’t describe weather patterns. She dramatizes arrival. March enters as a breathless visitor, coat half off, bringing rumors of birds and blushing maples. There’s humor here, even flirtation. But underneath is something deeper: the awareness that transition itself rearranges our priorities. Suddenly blame and praise seem equally small. March doesn’t just change landscapes. It changes scale.
2. “The Shepherd’s Calendar: March” (1827)
by John Clare
Author Bio
John Clare (1793–1864) was an English rural laborer turned poet. Known for his precise depictions of countryside life, Clare documented the environmental and social changes of early industrial England. His work is now recognized as foundational in ecological and nature poetry.
Full Text
March month of “many weathers” wildly comes
In hail and snow and rain and threatening hums
And floods and sunshine on the landscape still
And gossamers and daisies in the rill
And nettles rising from the shaded banks
And horses whinnying from the grassy ranks
And clouds half hid in mist and half in light
And tides of wind that make the day like night
And sunshine spreading on the fields below
And thaws that make the swelling rivers flow
And storms that turn the landscape into gloom
And buds that break and promise life in bloom.
Extended Preview
Clare writes March as inventory. Nothing is symbolic. Everything is observed. Hail. Sunshine. Flood. Bud. The poem’s rhythm mimics unstable skies, each line replacing the last before we settle. It’s honest about discomfort. But it never loses sight of the buds pushing through. Reading this in March reminds you that beauty does not erase hardship. It emerges alongside it.
3. “March: An Ode” (1865)
by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Author Bio
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) was a leading Victorian poet associated with the Pre-Raphaelite movement. His work is known for musicality, mythic imagery, and emotional intensity. Though controversial in his time, he is now valued for rhythmic innovation.
Opening Section (Public Domain)
The ways of the woodlands were fairer and stranger
Than dreams that fulfil us in sleep;
For the trees were alive with the breath of a danger
More soft than the shadows they keep.
The green light was full of the joy of the morning,
The winds were at play in the air,
And the earth was aware of a subtle adorning
That winter had left unaware.
Preview
Swinburne turns March into spectacle. Where Clare observes, Swinburne amplifies. Light becomes theatrical. Wind becomes choreography. There is grandeur here, almost operatic intensity. Reading this poem mid-March feels like standing in a forest just as snowmelt begins to glitter. The month is no longer transitional. It is triumphant.
4. “A Prayer in Spring” (1915)
by Robert Frost
Author Bio
Robert Frost (1874–1963) was one of America’s most widely read poets, awarded four Pulitzer Prizes. Though often associated with rural New England, his poems frequently explore philosophical tension beneath everyday scenes.
Full Text
Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers today;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.
Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,
Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;
And make us happy in the happy bees,
The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.
And make us happy in the darting bird
That suddenly above the bees is heard,
The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,
And off a blossom in mid air stands still.
For this is love and nothing else is love,
The which it is reserved for God above
To sanctify to what far ends He will,
But which it only needs that we fulfil.
Preview
Frost’s March is grounded and practical. He asks for present joy, not future yield. It’s a corrective to anxiety. In a month defined by uncertainty, Frost insists on attention. Notice the bees. Notice the blossom. That is enough. Reading this in March feels like setting down a calendar and stepping outside.
5. “A Light exists in Spring” (c. 1861)
by Emily Dickinson
Full Text
A Light exists in Spring
Not present on the Year
At any other period—
When March is scarcely here
A Color stands abroad
On Solitary Fields
That Science cannot overtake
But Human Nature feels.
It waits upon the Lawn,
It shows the furthest Tree
Upon the furthest Slope you know
It almost speaks to you.
Then as Horizons step
Or Noons report away
Without the Formula of sound
It passes and we stay—
A quality of loss
Affecting our Content
As Trade had suddenly encroached
Upon a Sacrament.
Preview
This is March at its most elusive. Dickinson captures a fleeting brightness that cannot be measured. The poem ends not in celebration, but in subtle loss. The light fades. We remain. March teaches us that beauty is often transitional. And that awareness deepens it.
6. “Spring” (1877)
by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Author Bio
Gerard Manley Hopkins was a Jesuit priest and poet whose work gained recognition after his death. His “sprung rhythm” technique and dense sound patterns influenced modernist poetry.
Full Text
Nothing is so beautiful as Spring—
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightning to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.
What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden.—Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.
Preview
Hopkins writes as if language itself is thawing. The poem is saturated with sound. Reading it in March feels almost overwhelming. The season surges. The world is rinsed and wrung. It reminds us that renewal can be intense, not gentle.
7. “Lines Written in Early Spring” (1798)
by William Wordsworth
Author Bio
William Wordsworth was a central figure of the English Romantic movement. His collaboration with Samuel Taylor Coleridge reshaped poetry toward emotional sincerity and attention to nature.
Full Text
I heard a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sate reclined,
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.
To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.
Through primrose tufts, in that sweet bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And ’tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.
The birds around me hopped and played,
Their thoughts I cannot measure,—
But the least motion which they made
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.
The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;
And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.
If this belief from heaven be sent,
If such be Nature’s holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?
Preview
Wordsworth begins in quiet observation but ends in moral reflection. March’s renewal forces comparison. If nature rejoices, why does humanity fracture? This poem feels contemplative. Not dramatic. It lingers.
8. “Spring” (1849)
by Christina Rossetti
Author Bio
Christina Rossetti was a Victorian poet known for lyrical clarity and devotional themes. Her work combines emotional restraint with vivid natural imagery.
Full Text
Blows the thaw-wind pleasantly,
Drips the soaking rain,
By fits looks down the waking sun:
Young grass springs on the plain;
Young leaves clothe early hedgerow trees;
Seeds lengthen in the furrows;
In garden plots, on roof and eaves,
The young birds chirp in burrows.
Preview
Rossetti’s March is understated. The thaw wind. The soaking rain. Young grass. It reads like a field journal written gently. The simplicity feels earned.
9. “At the Equinox” (2019)
by Arthur Sze
Author Bio
Arthur Sze is an American poet and translator whose work blends scientific precision with meditative imagery. He served as Poet Laureate of Santa Fe and has received numerous national awards.
Excerpt
we spot the rising shell of a moon
in the blue dusk;
wind braids the tips of pine needles;
we pause—
day and night nearly equal—
Preview
Sze’s equinox is not dramatic. It is balanced. Small details align. March becomes a study in equilibrium. Reading it mid-month feels like holding still long enough to feel day and night nearly equal.
10. “March” (2013)
by Richard Kenney
Author Bio
Richard Kenney is an American poet known for linguistic wit and formal precision. His work often blends intellectual playfulness with musical structure.
Excerpt
This weather’s witty:
peek-a-boo blue,
then clouds slam shut—
bloom and blues
in quick review.
Preview
Kenney captures the joke of March. Sunshine. Wind snap. Cloud return. It feels like stepping outside underdressed because the sky misled you. The poem is clever, but not cold. It enjoys the unpredictability.
Final Reflection
March is not a promise. It is a negotiation between what was and what might be.
These poems endure because they accept instability as part of renewal. They remind us that transformation rarely happens cleanly. It arrives with mud on its boots and light in its hands.
