London Snow by Robert Bridges

‘London Snow’ by Robert Bridges is a twenty-seven line poem which is all contained
within one block of text. Bridges has chosen to give this poem a specific, and
consistent rhyme scheme that only diverges from its pattern every few lines. The
poem begins with the end rhymes, ababcbcdc, the second set of lines ends with
different words but follows the same exact pattern. The rest of the poem continues in
a similar form, with only one or two misplaced words per stanza.

It is also important to note the repetition of general ending sounds that are used in
the poem. Bridges has emphasized the ‘ing’ sound in the first three sections. Even if
all the words do not perfectly rhyme, they often create half or slant rhymes. You can
read the full poem here.

London Snow

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.
Summary of London Snow

‘London Snow’ by Robert Bridges describes an early morning snowfall in London and
the reactions of those who walk within it.

The poem begins with the speaker stating that it is snowing in the city, and since
everyone is asleep, no one yet knows. When finally the city begins to wake, all are
quiet. No one wants to disturb the peace of these moments. They all know it is
fleeting and will not come again soon.

The narrator eventually flips the poem and begins to speak of himself in the first
person. He becomes a character that walks along the trees of London listening to the
yelling of school boys, and enjoying their excitement over the beauty of what they are
seeing for the first time.

In the final section he describes the “brown” of humanity returning to the snow as
the sombre men walk to their workplaces. While it seems to be a depressing scene, in
reality they are lighter in mind and heart than usual and do find some pleasant
diversion in the vastly changed landscape.

Analysis of London Snow

Lines 1-9

The first lines of this piece take the reader to a place that is at once familiar, but also
magical. Immediately one is placed in a position of knowledge as the subjects of the
poem, the men and women of the city of London, are still sleeping as the main action
occurs. There is a snow falling over the city of which no one is yet aware, aside from
the narrator and the readers, of course.

The speaker describes the snow as if it has its own agency. It “came flying,” seemingly
by choice, “In large white flakes.” It has come to grace a city which is usually
“brown.” The London of this era, just like many other cities, then and now, was
known for dank streets and dirty thoroughfares. Snow, in all its purity, seems out of
place within the “brown” muck of compressed humanity.

The poet continues to make use of anthropomorphism to describe the actions of the
snow. It is gliding into the city “Stealthily.” Its inherent quietness disturbs no one
and guarantees a surprise when everyone is finally awake. The streets begin to be
covered by a layer of it, “hushing” the traffic of the still sleeping town. The wheels of
the cars make no noise as they pass over the snow.
Bridges uses a large number of verbs to describe the actions of the snow. They fall
one after another creating a semi-rhyming pattern within the lines of the poem. The
flakes are “sifting,” “floating,” “drifting and sailing” to the ground.

Lines 10-18

In the second set of lines the speaker continues to describe the path of the snow and
how it came to the streets of London that night. It continued to fall all through the
night until it reached a “full…seven” inches. For London this is a remarkable amount
of snow, but it still manages to lay in “lightness” on the ground.

By the time the city is getting up, the clouds that created the snow are long gone.
They “blew off” from the sky leaving a clear view out over the newly white landscape.
The light that this clearness creates brings everyone out of bed earlier. All the people
of the city are used to much darker mornings.

While to some, a snowfall might seem unimportant, to the people of London it is a

marvellous feat. Everyone is dazed by the “whiteness” and amazed by the silences of
the streets as everyone contemplates the landscape. The city has undergone a true
transformation. There are no cars or carts on the street, and those who do venture
out, do so quietly. The “morning cries” are “thin and spare.” They are quiet and
infrequent.

Lines 19-30

The next set of lines signal a change in the poem, the speaker introduces himself
using the first-person pronoun, “I.” He has left his house, intent on walking through
the newly made city. The narrative of the piece narrows down and turns to focus on
what the speaker can see from his perspective.

From where he is walking he can hear the “boys…calling.” They are on their way to
school and stop to pick up and taste the magical snow. It contains what he calls,
“manna,” which is a reference to a food mentioned in the bible that God provides for
the Israelites. The snow is a benefit that no one was looking for.

The young boys are truly amazed by what they are seeing. So much so, they call to
one another and express particular fondness for the trees. It seems as if they have
never seen snow before. Perhaps this is the first time it has snowed since they were
born.

There are only a few “carts” on the road and those which are there move along very
quietly. Everyone is doing their best to preserve the peace of the morning for as long
as possible.
The sun has only just come up, but most of the city is already awake, due to the
brightness of the snow. The light is illuminating St. Paul’s Cathedral and spreading
across the ground. It brings further glory to the landscape, but also alludes to the fact
that the snow will melt sooner rather than later.

Lines 31-37

In the final seven lines the speaker returns to focus on the moment he is living. The
perfection of these few minutes and hours begin to come to a close as all the working
men are forced to carry on with their lives. As they leave their homes a “war is waged
with the snow.” They fight against it as they walk, in “trains of sombre men.”

The men are innumerable and serve as a stark remember of the reality of the city.
They bring their humanity with them, dirtying the snow as they go, returning it to the
brown of the city.

The happier initial tone of the poem reasserts itself and the speaker looks into the
minds of the men. They are not as depressed as they usually are.The landscape is
serving as a distraction that helps keep their minds, for a moment anyway, off their
realities.

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Robert Bridges was an English poet whose life and career spanned a good part of the
Victorian period, including a long stint as Poet Laureate from 1913 until his death in
1930. He is one of a number of poets whose work can be seen to bridge the heavy
formality associated with ‘classical’ English poetry and more modern 20thcentury
forms. He enjoyed experimenting with poetic form, seeking to stretch some of the
long-established rules of ‘traditional’ poetry. In particular he believed in syllabic
meter: the length and rhythm of lines should be determined by syllable – not stress –
count. True to his vision, London Snow contains many formal elements that are easy
to recognise, but are employed in unusual ways, to recreate the impression of snow
falling and gently carpeting the ground in a swathe of white. Take the opening few
lines:

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;
In the third line alone there are a cluster of techniques which make you take that
little bit longer reading to the end. Polysyllabic words (incessantly and perpetually
have 4 syllables each); repeating the adverb ending ‘LY’ 3 times (plus a bonus LY in
lying); linking his adverbs using and (the purposeful use of ‘and’ to connect items in a
list is called polysyndeton). Look further down the poem and you’ll see there are no
stanza breaks (the poem is written in continuous form); the lines are unbroken like a
field of fresh snow. The sentences are long – if you’re looking for full stops you won’t
find many; the first comes at the end of line 9, the next at line 18 and then, just when
you think you’ve found a pattern, lines 24, 30 and 37. There are several examples of
enjambment, such as: “And all woke earlier for the unaccustomed brightness / Of the
winter dawning.” Enjambment encourages you to read from one line to the next
without pause, mimicking the continuous, unceasing falling of snow.

Later in his career Bridges wrote a long poem in what he described as “loose
alexandrines.” An alexandrine is a line of poetry containing six iambic feet (12
syllables arranged in de-dum pairs) and you can see Bridges experimenting with
lines of similar length in London Snow. Read the four lines above and count the
syllables for yourself. He’s definitely aiming for 11 or 12 of them in each line,
although by his own admission Bridges was ‘loose’ about this, so the third line
reaches 15 syllables. Whatever the exact count, the lines are longer and more
stretched than you might be used to – an effective way to recreate the languorous feel
of ‘persistent’, ‘incessant’ snowfall.

In a poem that is ostensibly about quietness and silence, there are a surprising
number of aural elements. The rhyme scheme looks simple enough – alternate
lines rhyme. Right? Check again – it’s not that easy! Bridges has adapted a form
called terza rima, in which groups of three lines (tercets) follow the rhyme scheme:
ABA, BCB, CDC and so on. In his version of the terza rima he has eliminated the
stanza breaks (just like the fallen snow hides difference, makes unevenness even) It’s
easy to see the pattern if you pair up the tercets into groups of six lines each. You
should be able to see that the fifth line in each group predicts or ‘overlaps’ with the
first line of the next group. Label the lines like this: ABABCB, CDCDED, EFEFGF,
GHGHIH and so on (treat the odd 37th line as the first of a new, invisible group: ML
M). Now: sew the groups back together; think about how snow resting on the ground
has no visible breaks, how one section might ‘overlap’ into another, or how snow
might blur the boundaries of what you think you can perceive; – you’re probably
close to understanding how Bridges’ mind was working when he adopted the terza
rima form for this poem.

Terza rima takes care of sounds at the end of a line, but see how Bridges blends
sounds within lines as well. There is occasional internal rhyme, for example,
“Following along… a country company long….” All those ‘-ING’ and ‘-LY’ word
endings so close together help with the blending effect, as does frequent
alliteration: “Silently sifting and veiling road, roof and railing.” In fact, the poem
makes liberal use of all the major alliteration types: alliteration, assonance, and
consonance (alliteration of sounds anywhere in a word), so don’t overlook the F
and L sounds in the line above. Where possible, Bridges avoids using hard consonant
sounds. He prefers liquid, (L, R, W) nasal (N, M), and sibilant (S, Sh, Ch) alliteration,
creating a poem in which soft sounds blend and overlap easily. The technical name
for the use of softer sounds which blend harmoniously is euphony. The euphonic
sounds suggests the tranquility of an unbroken blanket of snow and hints at the
euphoric feelings of people awakening to a transformed city.

At its heart, this is what the poem is about: the transformative effect of snow on both
the cityscape and the people of the city. And what a transformation! It doesn’t just
look different – it sounds and feels different too. First, look closely at the diction in
lines 4 to 7 used by Bridges to stress the quieting effect of the snow:

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;

His word-choice and phrasing suggest that the city is normally a loud and busy place,
but today it has been ‘muffled’ or silenced. The usual sounds of wheel rumbling and
foot falling are missing; other sounds are thin and spare.

Then notice how the snow also works to visually hide the city. Visual descriptions
include veiling, hiding difference, unaccustomed brightness, unheavenly glare. The
power of both visual and aural descriptions accumulates in the two lines:

The eye marvelled—marvelled at the dazzling whiteness

The ear hearkened to the stillness of the solemn air;

Dazzling is the city at its most white and still. Repetition of marvelled after a
hyphen helps mark the peak of this crescendo, as does the reappearance of ‘white’ in
whiteness, not seen since the first line.

If you’ve ever had a day off school because of the snow, you’ll know exactly
how these boys feel.

After the transformative snowfall, the different, lighter atmosphere of the city can be
sensed by watching labourers heading toward their toil. For a brief moment, the
snow allows them to forget their daily thoughts of labour and sorrow. The word
encumber suggests a weight has been lifted from their shoulders. The schoolboys
show you even more vividly. Perhaps you’ve missed a day or two of school because of
heavy snow? If so, you might be able to identify with their happiness! Look how
quickly and eagerly they rush out to play in the snow: eight verbs in quick succession
– calling, gathering, tasting, rioted, plunging, snowballing, peering, cried –
emphasise the freedom they get to enjoy before they are once again confined by their
daily classroom routines.

It’s clear that the changes wrought by the snow have a symbolic dimension: the
snow contrasts strongly with the mundane, ordinary world inhabited by the people
we see in the poem. The image of trains of sombre men, past tale of number trudging
to work is biblical in scope, and presented in an odd, archaic register: it reminds me
of the story of Exodus. Bridges’ father died in 1853, but his stepfather was a vicar and
Bridges himself had once planned to enter the church. He later changed his mind
and studied medicine at Oxford instead; but he never abandoned his religious beliefs.
The snow is described as both heavenly and as crystal manna, a substance
originating from heaven. ‘White’ is often symbolic of heavenly or religious purity, and
St Paul’s Cathedral is referenced in the poem as Paul’s high dome. The snow – which
derives from heaven – completely contrasts with the city, which is a mundane place,
and the people in the city who are embroiled in everyday concerns. The snow is
white; the city is brown. The snow is silent; people are loud. The snow is peaceful;
people are boisterous. The opposition between ‘human and divine’ is made explicit
when Bridges writes that war is waged with the snow. Rioting, describing the
schoolboys kicking through a snowdrift, is a much stronger word than ‘playing’ or the
like. That loud call of the boys is joyous – but it also ruins the silent scene: “O look at
the trees!” they cried. “O look at the trees!”

At the end of the day, the transformative power of the snow is more than just visual
and aural; it provides a relief from suffering, a pleasant diversion (their minds
diverted) and a reminder of the divine in a world that doesn’t seem very godly. But
the respite is short-lived. It’s here for today, but it will surely melt away and soon the
ordinary state of things will return. In fact, this process begins even before the end of
London Snow – look how the colour of the city emerges from the snow as the men
march in long brown paths. The last line of the poem, for the charm they have
broken, suggests that people’s true nature, and the normality of the city, will be
reasserted before long.