March
I Martius am! Once first, and now the third!To lead the Year was my appointed place;A mortal dispossessed me by a word,And set there Janus with the double face.Hence I make war on all the human race;I shake the cities with my hurricanes;I flood the rivers and their banks efface,And drown the farms and hamlets with my rains.
About this text
March is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Project Gutenberg ebook #1365; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, March, in The Complete Poetical Works (1839–1882), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1365, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/longfellow-poems/march.html, id L17817.
Form and metre
March is 8 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABABBCBC. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables.
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABABBCBC thirdA · placeB · wordA · faceB · raceB · hurricanesC · effaceB · rainsC
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I Martius am! Once first, and now the third! | 10 | ·········· |
| To lead the Year was my appointed place; | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| A mortal dispossessed me by a word, | 10 | ·/˘·˘/···· |
| And set there Janus with the double face. | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Hence I make war on all the human race; | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| I shake the cities with my hurricanes; | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| I flood the rivers and their banks efface, | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| And drown the farms and hamlets with my rains. | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.