Lament for the Death of Snow Days

 Archdruid: The snow lieth deep and crisp and even.

All: Like unto that Wesley's Lass saw on the Feast of Stephen.

Archdruid: Don't you mean Wenceslas?

All: Ah, yes. As you were.

Archdruid: The snow lieth as during the Winter of Discontent.

All: When the only dead thing was Jim Callaghan's career. And bags of Labour policies went uncollected in the streets.

Archdruid: And the ice overnight was as cold as Priti Patel's heart.

All: And as white as Nigel Farage's fantasies.

Archdruid: And though the M1 is clear, and the main roads are flowing

All: Yet we can't get our cars off the drive.

Archdruid: Not unless you have a 4x4.

All: And the Community Tractor won't get us to work on time.

Archdruid: And so I declare a Snow Day! 

All: Best get to work then.

Archdruid: My heart leaps in me as I remember the snow days of old. We would toast the cheese sandwiches we'd made for school, and head out to throw snowballs until our hands froze.

All: Zoom scrum at 8.30.

Archdruid: Or even as an adult. When snow stopped me driving to the office and I would walk through snow to the pub.

Little Pebbles: Zoom School at 9.

Archdruid: And the youths would compete for who could build the biggest snow man.

Youths: Zoom apprentice study all day.

Archdruid: And, at Oxford, when the snow lay like a white shawl on Brasenose's Old Quad and we skipped lectures and encased the Senior Dean in ice - a tradition going back to 1642.

Students: Zoom lectures.

Archdruid: So let snow and ice praise God from whom all blessings fall. And rush into the outside world and... just me?

All: We'll watch it melt from behind our screens.

Archdruid: Ah, nostalgia ain't as good as it used to be.

All: It never was.