 Hello and welcome to our video summarizing everything you need to know about the songs of ourselves volume 1 part 2 anthology My name is Barbara and this is the second of a 15 part video series Well, we'll examine all 15 poems in this anthology Do you remember that every day we'll release a video examining each of the poems in the anthology and looking at the poets context as well as Analyzing each of the poem in detail. So let's get started Now we'll look at London snow for Robert Bridges in summary London snow is a 27 line poem which is all contained within one block of texts Bridges has chosen to give this poem a specific and consistent rhyme scheme that only diverges from its pattern every few lines The poem begins and ends with rhymes a b a b c b c d c The second set of lines ends with different words, but follows the same exact pattern The rest of the poem continues a similar form with only one or two misplaced words per stanza And it's important to note the repetition of the general ending sounds that are used in the poem Bridges has emphasised the ing sound in the first three sections in other words the ing sound and even if all the words stop perfectly rhyme They often create half or slant rhymes Now this poem describes an early morning snowfall in London and the reactions of those who walk within it The poem begins with the speaker stating that it's knowing the city and since everyone's asleep no one yet knows When finally the city begins to wake all are quiet and no one wants to disturb the peace of these moments They all know that it's fleeting and will not come again soon The narrator eventually flips the poem and begins to speak of himself in the first person And he becomes a character that walks along the streets of London listening to the yelling of schoolboys and enjoying the excitement Over the beauty of what they've seen for the first time in the final section He describes the brown of humanity Returning to the snow as the somber men work walk to the workplaces and while it seems to be a depressing scene in reality They are a lighter in mind and heart than usual and do find some pleasant diversion in the vastly changed landscape Now when it comes to analysis if we look at lines one to nine first off the first lines of this piece take the reader to a place That's once familiar but also quite magical Immediately once placed in a position of knowledge as the subjects of the poem the men and women in the city of London are still Sleeping as the main action occurs There's no falling all over the city of which no one is yet aware aside from the narrator and the readers of course The speaker describes the snow as if it's got its own agency and to quit from the poem It came flying seemingly by choice in large white flakes Now this snow has come to grace a city, which is usually brown Now do you remember that the London of this era which is the Victorian era just like many other cities then and even now was known for its Dirty dank streets and also dirty thoroughfares And of course this is a result of the industrial revolution and the pollution of all these factories So snow in all its purity seems quite out of place within the brown muck of compressed humanity in London Now in lines one to nine the poet continues to make use of anthropomorphism to describe the actions of the snow It is gliding into the city stealthily and its inherent quietness disturbs no one and guarantees a surprise when everyone finally wakes The streets begin to be covered by a layer of it hushing the traffic of the still sleeping town The walls of cars make no noise as they pass over the snow and bridges uses a number of verbs to describe the actions of the Snow the fall one after another creating a semi rhyming pattern within the lines of the poem and the flakes are sifting Floating drifting and sailing to quit from the poem to the ground Now in lines ten to eighteen in this second set of lines the speaker continues to describe the path of the snow And how it came to the streets of London at night it continues to fall all through the night until it reached and to quote a four seven inches For London, this is a really remarkable amount of snow But it still manages to lay in lightness on the ground by this time the city is waking up the clouds that created the snow a long Gone the blue off from the sky leaving a clear view out over the newly white landscape The light that this clearness creates brings everybody out of bed earlier and all the people of the city are used to much darker mornings Well to some a snowfall might seem unimportant and very unremarkable to the people of London It's a really marvelous feat and everyone is really dazed by the whiteness and amazed by the silences of the street as they contemplate the landscape The city has undergone a true transformation and there no cars or carts on the street And those that do venture out do so quietly the morning choirs are thin and spare to quote from the poem that means they're quiet and infrequent Now in lines 19 to 30 the next set of lines signal a change in the poem and the speaker introduces himself He's in the first person pronoun I He's left his house intent on walking through the newly made city Now the narrative of this piece narrows down and turns to focus on what the speaker can see from this perspective From where he is walking he can hear the boys calling They seem to be on the way to school and they stop to pick up and taste the magical snow It contains what he calls manor which means something unexpected and from a biblical perspective manor is Gift usually food that falls from the sky sent to by God Now the snow is seen as a benefit that nobody was looking for and in many ways almost a blessing from God Now the young boys are truly amazed by what they're seeing so much So that they call each other and express a particular fondness for the trees It seems as if they've never seen snow before perhaps is the first time it's snowed since they were born There are also only a few carts on the road and those which move there move very quietly Everyone's doing the best to preserve the peace of the morning for as long as possible The sun's only just come up, but most of the city is already awake due to the brightness of the snow The light is illuminating St. Paul's Cathedral and spreading across the ground and it brings further glory to the landscape But also alludes to the fact that the snow will melt sooner rather than later Now lines 31 to 37 in the final seven lines The speaker returns to focus on the moment that they're living in the perfection of these few minutes and hours begin to come To a close as all the working men are forced to carry on with the lives as they leave the homes A war is waged with the snow to quote from the poem The men fight as they walk in and to quote trains of somber men The men are portrayed as innumerable and they serve as a stark reminder of the reality of London City at this time They bring the humanity with them dirty in the snow as they go along Returning it to the brown of the city and the happier initial tone of the poem Reasserts itself and the speaker looks into the mind of the men. They're not as depressed as they usually are the landscape is serving as a Description that helps them keep the minds from a moment anyway off the realities So that's all if you found this video and this analysis useful We would really appreciate it if you gave this video a big thumbs up and also considered subscribing to our channel As I've mentioned before this is the second of a 15 part video summary series Will we examine all 15 poems in the songs of ourselves volume 1 part 2 anthology? So make sure you come back for video 3. Thank you so much for listening