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Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

Thanks to Mrs E for turning this one up.

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.

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It's a beautiful poem isn't it?

I've got Michael Rosen to thank for tweeting that link out this morning (while I was watching the snow).
Marvelous, no more words needed.
Agree, one of my favourites. First read it in Mrs Conlon's Class 5 in early December 1954. I remember because a bunch of us had just sat the first leg of the old Eleven+ exam the previous day and this was one of a cluster of Weather poems she gave us by way of a treat. Clonalig Primary School may have been far removed from London streets but a line like 'With lessened load a few carts creak and blunder' was still as recognisable to us in 1954 as in Bridges' time. Rosen, Respect! (Glad to see his tweet didn't squeeze Bridges into 240 characters.)
Nice poem, thanks Hugh.
But boys going to school through seven inches of snow, up to their knees ? Changed days :-)
Schools of today eh? 'Twere different in the good old days.

Of course then teachers lived in/above/around the school, and people walked rather than drove to school.

Both might be sensible things to go back to...

Can't help thinking I need to read this little gem again watching the snow falling outside

Reading this tonight. Seems a good night for it.

Thanks Liz for the revisit.

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