The speaker stands in a raw March wind, watching it shake trees and hedges into clattering noise, and turns that force into a witness. She asks it to remember—after she is gone—that she loved her life, both the painful and the healing parts. This is not a sorrowful statement; it is a declaration. Looking out at a newly broken field, she swears an oath to life itself. The last lines grow quieter: she says the wind, which alone knew her, can tell others she was glad for every hour and has stopped fearing death, here called “the last complete reunion with the earth.” The mood is bracing and almost triumphant, but also tender. It feels like someone making peace with mortality while still fully alive, letting the windy day carry her gratitude and resolve.
On a March Day — Summary
Here in the teeth of this triumphant wind That shakes the naked shadows on the ground, Making a key-board of the earth to strike From clattering tree and hedge a separate sound, Bear witness for me that I loved my life, All things that hurt me and all things that healed, And that I swore to it this day in March, Here at the edge of this new-broken field. You only knew me, tell them I was glad For every hour since my hour of birth, And that I ceased to fear, as once I feared, The last complete reunion with the earth.