March by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

It's a dramatic monologue delivered by the month of March. March expresses its anger over being moved from the first month of the Roman calendar to third place after a king reformed the calendar, placing January at the top. In retaliation, March unleashes storms and floods upon humanity.

The poem doesn't mention him by name, but Longfellow is talking about Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome. He is often credited with reforming the Roman calendar around 713 BCE by adding January and February at the start of the year, which moved March from the first position to the third.

Janus is the Roman god associated with beginnings, transitions, and doorways. He’s typically shown with two faces that look in opposite directions—one facing the past and the other the future. The month of January is named after him. March refers to him as "double-faced," both as a literal description of his appearance and as a jab, suggesting that Janus is untrustworthy.

The poem consists of one eight-line stanza crafted in iambic pentameter. It follows an ABABBCBC rhyme scheme, with the B rhyme ("place / face / race / efface") weaving through the middle, creating a unifying thread. This strict structure offers a striking contrast to the poem's wild and tumultuous themes.

Yes, the core history is accurate. The early Roman calendar indeed started in March before it was reformed to begin in January. The fact that Janus is placed at the start of the year has historical roots — January literally translates to "month of Janus." Longfellow draws on authentic Roman calendrical history as the foundation of the poem.

Because it was a human—a mortal king—who demoted March to begin with. March's anger is aimed at humanity as a whole because it was human actions that disrupted what March believes is its rightful place in the cosmos. The storms and floods are March's way of retaliating against the species that caused its demotion.

There's a comic aspect to this for sure. The notion of a month having a centuries-long meltdown over a calendar change, and showing that meltdown through typical spring storms, is just plain silly. Longfellow approaches it seriously, which adds to the humor. At the same time, the poem serves as a real mythological explanation for the wild and erratic weather we see in March.

The poem turns the usual power dynamic on its head. Typically, we see humans as the ones who manage and shape the natural world — but in this case, a human king actually reorganized the calendar. March's response illustrates that nature isn't going to accept that change without a fight. The storms represent nature pushing back against human order, a theme that Longfellow revisits in many of his works.