London Snow by Robert Bridges

 "LONDON SNOW" by Robert Bridges (1844-1930)  (excerpts)

 When men were all asleep the snow came flying, in large white flakes falling on the city brown.

 Silently sifting and veiling road, roof and railing; hiding difference, making uneveness even,

 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.

 Marvelled at the dazzling whiteness

 The ear hearkened to the stillness of the solemn air;

 No sound of wheel rumbling nor of foot falling,

 Then boys I heard, as they went to school, calling; they gathered up the crystal manna to freeze their tongues with tasting....

 O look at the trees.

 When now already the sun, in pale display

 Standing by St. Paul's dome, spread forth below

 His sparkling beams, and awoke the stir of day

 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 Seymour Bridges was Britain's poet laureate from 1913 to 1930. A doctor first, he became famous in  his latter years. His  deeply Christian faith is apparent in everything he wrote.  He also wrote many well known Hymns.In 1929 he wrote "A Testament to Beauty" to celebrate the life of his daughter Margaret, who died that year.

 Photographs from Mt. Washington Range and the Coast Mountains of Discovery Passage, Campbell River, B.C. 2018

 "London Snow" from A Treasury of Great Poems, NY 1942