Summary
The speaker describes hearing boys, yelling on their way to school as they play in the snow. They taste it, make snowballs out of it, and shout at one another to look up at the snow-covered trees. A few carts slowly creak by through the desolate streets, and disperse in different directions as they leave the city and head out into the country. The sun, shining over the dome of the famous St. Paul's Cathedral, lights up the city and brings about the bustle of daytime.
Analysis
Though the title tells us that this snowy scene takes place in London, it's easy to forget this urban setting while reading. In the poem's earlier sections, humans didn't appear at all, and the buildings of London were covered up by snow. Now, humans have been carefully injected into the poem: there's even an "I" now, with the speaker becoming a part of the scenery. But the way in which humanity has been sprinkled back is distinct and deliberate.
The author chooses to zoom in on a very particular segment of humanity: children. These children, meanwhile, aren't participating in the standard activities of nineteenth-century London—they're playing outside, as if living a pastoral existence. Instead of engaging with commerce or industry, they're immersed in snow and they look with wonder at the trees around them. In other words, the snow puts these urban children back in touch with the natural world. It also seems to put them in touch with their own bodies—which are, after all, part of the natural world— in a new way. Though the snow mutes sound and makes everything look the same, it also seems to bring these children's senses to life. They taste it, touch it, and look at it. Again, the presence of snow seems to totally override London's urban qualities, transforming the city into something indistinguishable from the country. When Bridges does refer to a distinctly London landmark, he chooses St. Paul's Cathedral, a preindustrial building that hearkens back to an earlier era of the city's history. In other words, the snow doesn't just make a city seem like the country—it also turns an industrialized environment into a preindustrial one.
In many ways, Bridges is writing in the tradition of Britain's Romantic poets, though he wrote decades after the peak of that movement. His interest in the tension between the pastoral and the industrial is characteristic of the Romantic movement. Moreover, he suggests that a natural phenomenon like snow is ultimately able to erase the human-made city, demonstrating nature's sublime (if at times invisible) power. Like the Romantic poets, Bridges appears to be interested in childhood. He suggests that childhood can be an innocent and idyllic state, but that nature, rather than cities, is conducive to preserving and nurturing that innocence. When the poem's schoolboys are briefly immersed in the snow, able to connect with the natural world, they seem to regain their innocence and wonder. The world becomes new to them, making them appear and feel even younger than they are.
