Robert Bridges: 'London Snow'

snow in london by myrealnameispete. Used under Creative Commons license


When cold weather comes, I often think of Robert Bridges's 'London Snow'. The fact is, though, that recent London winters have been mild (I think the last really cold and fairly snowy one was 2012-2013) and this poem just hasn't seemed as appropriate. But today (yesterday? and maybe again today) it did snow, substantially. I was out and about in it for a while, but didn't get a chance to visit a park, which would have been a good idea; it usually sticks for longer there. We had big fat flake snow, wet snow, rain, more big fat flakes... When I walked down the road later to my favourite local coffee shop, the large, airy flakes fell and I had a moment of...whatever snow conjures. Motion, stillness in motion, nostalgia (something I indulge in far too much these days).

The languid movement of the poem is exceptional in conveying the coming of snow, the gentle swing through the poem's lines of the present participles - "flying", "settling", "lying", "hushing". After the snowfall, the language becomes brisker and more descriptive, but still conveying the transformative nature of snow ("the solemn air," "crystal manna".) I also like how the poem describes the conflict between fallen snow's stillness and beauty, and the struggle of human beings in a big city who need to clear the snow away and get on with their lives.


LONDON SNOW (Robert Bridges)

When men were all asleep the snow came flying, 

In large white flakes falling on the city brown, 

Stealthily and perpetually settling and loosely lying, 

      Hushing the latest traffic of the drowsy town; 

Deadening, muffling, stifling its murmurs failing; 

Lazily and incessantly floating down and down: 

      Silently sifting and veiling road, roof and railing; 

Hiding difference, making unevenness even, 

Into angles and crevices softly drifting and sailing. 

      All night it fell, and when full inches seven 

It lay in the depth of its uncompacted lightness, 

The clouds blew off from a high and frosty heaven; 

      And all woke earlier for the unaccustomed brightness 

Of the winter dawning, the strange unheavenly glare: 

The eye marvelled—marvelled at the dazzling whiteness; 

      The ear hearkened to the stillness of the solemn air; 

No sound of wheel rumbling nor of foot falling, 

And the busy morning cries came thin and spare. 

      Then boys I heard, as they went to school, calling, 

They gathered up the crystal manna to freeze 

Their tongues with tasting, their hands with snowballing; 

      Or rioted in a drift, plunging up to the knees; 

Or peering up from under the white-mossed wonder, 

‘O look at the trees!’ they cried, ‘O look at the trees!’ 

      With lessened load a few carts creak and blunder, 

Following along the white deserted way, 

A country company long dispersed asunder: 

      When now already the sun, in pale display 

Standing by Paul’s high dome, spread forth below 

His sparkling beams, and awoke the stir of the day. 

      For now doors open, and war is waged with the snow; 

And trains of sombre men, past tale of number, 

Tread long brown paths, as toward their toil they go: 

      But even for them awhile no cares encumber 

Their minds diverted; the daily word is unspoken, 

The daily thoughts of labour and sorrow slumber 

At the sight of the beauty that greets them, for the charm they have broken.