London
Snow
by 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.
|
Robert Bridges | Classic
Poems |