"London Snow" is an 1890 poem by Robert Bridges that describes the effects of a heavy snow on late-nineteenth-century London. The poem, in evoking the ethereality and beauty of the snow, implicitly criticizes industrial and urban lifestyles while celebrating the natural world.
The poem begins with a description of an unceasing, leisurely nighttime snow. It then recounts the events of the following morning as Londoners enjoy the beauty around them. It describes the activities of young boys, who are transported to a pastoral and innocent childhood through the natural phenomenon of the snow. It also describes the mental processes of workers trudging through the snow, physically locked into their daily circumstances but mentally liberated by the sudden appearance of the snow. Ultimately, the poem suggests, the natural world is more powerful and more real than the urban one, which is essentially a persistent illusion.
The poem makes heavy use of personification, alliteration, and synecdoche to convey an interconnected and near-magical world, brought to life by the arrival of the snow. It consists of 37 lines written in a modified terza rima without a consistent meter. Though Robert Bridges wrote it at the close of the nineteenth century, its themes—nature's transcendental power, the dangers of industrialization, and the innocence of childhood—are in keeping with the concerns that preoccupied his Romantic predecessors.
