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Robert Bridges

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Bridges on the cover of Time in 1929
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Bridges on the cover of Time in 1929

Robert Seymour Bridges, OM, (October 23, 1844 – April 21, 1930) was an English poet, holder of the honour of poet laureate from 1913.

Contents

Life

Bridges was born in Walmer, Kent, and educated at Eton College and Corpus Christi College, Oxford.[Bridges, Robert] He went on to study medicine at St Bartholomew's Hospital, and intended to practice until the age of forty and then retire to write poetry. However, lung disease forced him to retire in 1882, and from that point he devoted himself to writing and literary research.[Hymnody, Robert Bridges][Robert Bridges]

Bridges' literary work started long before his retirement, with his first collection of poems being published in 1873. In 1884 he married Monica Waterhouse, daughter of Alfred Waterhouse, and spent the rest of his life in rural seclusion, first at Yattendon, Berkshire, then at Boar's Hill, Oxford, where he died. The poet Elizabeth Daryush was his daughter. [Robert Bridges]

Literary Work

Bridges was known for his technical mastery of prosody. In book Milton's Prosody, he took an empirical approach to examining Milton's use of blank verse, and developed the controversial theory that Milton's practice was essentially syllabic. He considered free verse to be too limiting, and explained his position in the essay "Humdrum and Harum-Scarum." His own efforts to "free" verse resulted in the poems he called 'Neo-Miltonic Syllabics' which were collected in New Verse (1925). The meter of these poems was based on syllables rather than accents, and he used it again in the long philosophical poem "The Testament of Beauty" (1929), for which received the Order of Merit. His best-known poems, however, are to be found in the two earlier volumes of Shorter Poems (1890, 1894). He also wrote verse plays, with limited success, and literary criticism, including a study of the work of John Keats.[Robert Seymour Bridges][OM]

Despite being made poet laureate in 1913, Bridges was never a very well-known poet and only achieved his great popularity shortly before his death with "The Testament of Beauty". However, his verse evoked response in many great English composers of the time. Among those to set his poems to music were Hubert Parry, Gustav Holst, and later Gerald Finzi.[Robert Bridges]

At Corpus Christi College, Bridges became friends with Gerard Manley Hopkins, who is now considered a superior poet but who owes his present fame to Bridges' efforts in arranging the posthumous publication (1916) of his verse.[Robert Seymour Bridges]

Medical career

Robert Bridges OM is the only medical graduate (he was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians of London in 1900) to have held the office of Poet Laureate. Educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford and St Bartholomew's Hospital he practised as a casualty physician at his teaching hospital (where he made a series of highly critical remarks of the Victorian medical establishment) and subsequently as a full physician to the Great (later Royal) Northern Hospital. He was also a physician to the Hospital for Sick Children.[Medical career]

Hymnody

Bridges made an important contribution to hymnody with the publication in 1899 of his Yattendon Hymnal, which he created the Yattendon Hymnal specifically for musical reasons. This collection of hymns, although not a financial success, became a bridge between the Victorian hymnody of the last half of the 19th century and the modern hymnody of the early 20th century. 

Bridges translated important historic hymns and many of these were included in Songs of Syon (1904) and the later English Hymnal, 1906. Several of Bridges translations are still in use today:




Poems






Melancholia






:::Melancholia




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. 

Incertainty that once gave scope to dream 

Of laughing enterprise and glory untold, 

Is now a blackness that no stars redeem, 

A wall of terror in a night of cold. 



Fool! thou that hast impossibly desired 




And now impatiently despairest, see 

How nought is changed: Joy's wisdom is attired 

Splended for others' eyes if not for thee: 

Not love or beauty or youth from earth is fled: 

If they delite thee not, 'tis thou art dead.




[Melancholia]










The Evening Darkens Over






::The Evening Darkens Over




THE evening darkens over 

After a day so bright, 

The windcapt waves discover 

That wild will be the night. 

There's sound of distant thunder. 




The latest sea-birds hover 

Along the cliff's sheer height; 

As in the memory wander 

Last flutterings of delight, 

White wings lost on the white. 



There's not a ship in sight; 

And as the sun goes under, 

Thick clouds conspire to cover 

The moon that should rise yonder. 

Thou art alone, fond lover.




[The Evening Darkens Over]




Major Works



Poetry





Criticism and Essays





Notes






References



External links





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