The Whitsun Weddings

This poem is about the may bank holiday, we see how the person is travelling to London via train and on the way he witnesses new married couples embarking upon their honeymoons as husband and wife. Each stanza reflects on the where the train stops, the enjambment is where the train is moving and the end stop is it stopping : the train becomes a metaphor for movement.
In the 3rd and 4th stanzas we see how the persona had a negative judgement towards the family of the first bride and groom he encounters. The onomatopoeia of "whoops" and "skirls" describes the crowd of people cheering, the positive connotations of the adjectives used make it sound happy, simply through the words. The persona then goes onto a mockery tone of them all how they are "in parodies of fashion" and are all "posed irresolutely", the persona looks down onto them as they are simply common people.As the train moves on, the persona encounters more families where "confetti and advice were thrown" along with the girls being like a "happy funeral" this simile/oxymoron could symbolize the mourning of the unhappiness that marriage brings, the youth of the couple gone, independence, freedom all taken through the bond of love.
Towards the end of the poem we see the persona go into a philosophical meaning of experience of how the "arrow shower" represents the train moving them into the future, but the future is forcast is "rain". The pathetic fallacy can suggest the relief and refreshment of a new life together,and how rain in nature is the helping to grow a new life.