Robert Seymour Bridges

Robert Seymour Bridges Poems

When men were all asleep the snow came flying, In large white flakes falling on the city brown,
...

I will not let thee go.
Ends all our month-long love in this?
Can it be summed up so,
Quit in a single kiss?
...

My delight and thy delight
Walking, like two angels white,
In the gardens of the night:
...

So sweet love seemed that April morn,
When first we kissed beside the thorn,
So strangely sweet, it was not strange
We thought that love could never change.
...

Awake, my heart, to be loved, awake, awake!

The darkness silvers away, the morn doth break,
It leaps in the sky: unrisen lustres slake
...

In autumn moonlight, when the white air wan
Is fragrant in the wake of summer hence,
'Tis sweet to sit entranced, and muse thereon
In melancholy and godlike indolence:
...

'Twas at that hour of beauty when the setting sun
squandereth his cloudy bed with rosy hues, to flood
his lov'd works as in turn he biddeth them Good-night;
and all the towers and temples and mansions of men
...

Beautiful must be the mountains whence ye come,
And bright in the fruitful valleys the streams, wherefrom
Ye learn your song:
Where are those starry woods? O might I wander there,
...

Spring goeth all in white,
Crowned with milk-white may:
In fleecy flocks of light
O'er heaven the white clouds stray:
...

The sickness of desire, that in dark days
Looks on the imagination of despair,
Forgetteth man, and stinteth God his praise;
Nor but in sleep findeth a cure for care.
...

I never shall love the snow again
Since Maurice died:
With corniced drift it blocked the lane,
And sheeted in a desolate plain
...

Whither, O splendid ship, thy white sails crowding,
Leaning across the bosom of the urgent West,
That fearest nor sea rising, nor sky clouding,
Whither away, fair rover, and what thy quest?
...

When my love was away,
Full three days were not sped,
I caught my fancy astray
Thinking if she were dead,
...

I
I have lain in the sun,
I have toiled as I might,
I have thought as I would,
...

I love all beauteous things,
I seek and adore them;
God hath no better praise,
...

While yet we wait for spring, and from the dry
And blackening east that so embitters March,
Well-housed must watch grey fields and meadows parch,
And driven dust and withering snowflake fly;
...

The south-wind strengthens to a gale,
Across the moon the clouds fly fast,
The house is smitten as with a flail,
The chimney shudders to the blast.
...

Unflinching hero, watchful to foresee
And face thy country's peril wheresoe'er,
Directing war and peace with equal care,
Till by long toil ennobled thou wert he
...

I have lain in the sun
I have toil'd as I might,
I have thought as I would,
And now it is night.
...

I have loved flowers that fade,
Within whose magic tents
Rich hues have marriage made
With sweet unmemoried scents:
...

Robert Seymour Bridges Biography

Robert Seymour Bridges was an English poet noted for his technical mastery of prosody and for his sponsorship of the poetry of his friend Gerard Manley Hopkins. Born into a prosperous family, Bridges went to Eton College and then to Oxford, where he met Hopkins. His edition of Hopkins' poetry that appeared in 1916 rescued it from obscurity. From 1869 until 1882 Bridges worked as a medical student and physician in London hospitals. In 1884 he married Mary Monica Waterhouse, and he spent the rest of his life in virtually unbroken domestic seclusion, first at Yattendon, Berkshire, then at Boar's Hill, devoting himself almost religiously to poetry, contemplation, and the study of prosody. Although he published several long poems and poetic dramas, his reputation rests upon the lyrics collected in Shorter Poems (1890, 1894). New Verse (1925) contains experiments using a metre based on syllables rather than accents. He used this form for his long philosophical poem The Testament of Beauty, published on his 85th birthday. Bridges was poet laureate from 1913 until his death in 1930.)

The Best Poem Of Robert Seymour Bridges

London Snow

When men were all asleep the snow came flying, In large white flakes falling on the city brown,
Stealthily and perpetually settling and loosely lying,
Hushing the latest traffic of the drowsy town;
Deadening, muffling, stifling its murmurs failing;
Lazily and incessantly floating down and down:
Silently sifting and veiling road, roof and railing;
Hiding difference, making unevenness even,
Into angles and crevices softly drifting and sailing.
All night it fell, and when full inches seven
It lay in the depth of its uncompacted lightness,
The clouds blew off from a high and frosty heaven;
And all woke earlier for the unaccustomed brightness
Of the winter dawning, the strange unheavenly glare:
The eye marvelled-marvelled at the dazzling whiteness;
The ear hearkened to the stillness of the solemn air;
No sound of wheel rumbling nor of foot falling,
And the busy morning cries came thin and spare.
Then boys I heard, as they went to school, calling,
They gathered up the crystal manna to freeze
Their tongues with tasting, their hands with snowballing;
Or rioted in a drift, plunging up to the knees;
Or peering up from under the white-mossed wonder,
'O look at the trees!' they cried, 'O look at the trees!'
With lessened load a few carts creak and blunder,
Following along the white deserted way,
A country company long dispersed asunder:
When now already the sun, in pale display
Standing by Paul's high dome, spread forth below
His sparkling beams, and awoke the stir of the day.
For now doors open, and war is waged with the snow;
And trains of sombre men, past tale of number,
Tread long brown paths, as toward their toil they go:
But even for them awhile no cares encumber
Their minds diverted; the daily word is unspoken,
The daily thoughts of labour and sorrow slumber
At the sight of the beauty that greets them, for the charm they have broken.

Robert Seymour Bridges Comments

Mr e slaters 16 October 2020

I have a small booklet written in calligraphy by the late Robert bridges which I would looked at by an expert it belongs to my son-in-law

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