This week: Robert Seymour Bridges Edited by: Stormy Lady  
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This is poetry from the minds and the hearts of poets on Writing.Com. The poems I am going to be exposing throughout this newsletter are ones that I have found to be, very visual, mood setting and uniquely done. Stormy Lady
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A Passer-by
by Robert Seymour Bridges
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?
Ah! soon, when Winter has all our vales opprest,
When skies are cold and misty, and hail is hurling,
Wilt thoù glìde on the blue Pacific, or rest
In a summer haven asleep, thy white sails furling.
I there before thee, in the country that well thou knowest,
Already arrived am inhaling the odorous air:
I watch thee enter unerringly where thou goest,
And anchor queen of the strange shipping there,
Thy sails for awnings spread, thy masts bare:
Nor is aught from the foaming reef to the snow-capp'd grandest
Peak, that is over the feathery palms, more fair
Than thou, so upright, so stately and still thou standest.
And yet, O splendid ship, unhail'd and nameless,
I know not if, aiming a fancy, I rightly divine
That thou hast a purpose joyful, a courage blameless,
Thy port assured in a happier land than mine.
But for all I have given thee, beauty enough is thine,
As thou, aslant with trim tackle and shrouding,
From the proud nostril curve of a prow's line
In the offing scatterest foam, thy white sails crowding.
On October 23, 1844, in Walmer England, Robert Seymour Bridges was born. Bridges spent his early childhood in a house where he could watch the British fleet anchor in the harbor. When Bridges was nine his father passed away, within a year his mother remarried and the family moved to Rochdale, where his stepfather was the vicar.Bridges was sent to Eton College to get his education. It was there that he met poet Digby Mackworth Dolben and Lionel Muirhead. Who would remain his life long friends.
In 1863 Bridges enrolled in Corpus Christi College at Oxford University. While studying at Corpus Christi Bridges met Gerard Manley Hopkins and became lifelong friends. Bridges was originally considering a religious life in the Church of England but decided to be a physician instead and began his study of medicine at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in 1869. Bridges failed his first attempt at the medical exams in 1873. He left for Dublin shortly after his exams and continued to study medicine there for the summer.
In 1873 Bridges published his first book of poems, “Poems”. That following year he received his degree and started working at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London. He worked at the hospital for only a few short years and retired after battling an illness to devote his time to literature. Bridges moved himself and his mother to Yattendon in Berkshire. There he met Monica Waterhouse, daughter of the famous architect Alfred A. Waterhouse. The couple soon married and had children. One of their children became a poet, Elizabeth Daryush.
In 1889 Bridges' friend and fellow poet Gerard Manley Hopkins died. Bridges took it upon himself to collect Hopkins poems and do the editing of his friends' work for publication, postpartum. During his residency in Yattendon Bridges wrote most of his best-known lyrics as well as eight plays and two masques, all in verse. “The Growth of Love” published in 1889, “Shorter Poems, Books I–IV” published in 1890 followed by “Shorter Poems, Books I–V” in 1894. “New Poems,” was published in 1899. Bridges' wife then became ill and he moved his family around to find her a healthier climate to live in. Before returning to England at Chilswell House, a house that Bridges built on Boar's Hill overlooking Oxford University.
World War took an emotional toll on Bridges. His son Edward was wounded in battle. His poetry began to echo his feelings. He wrote and published “The Spirit of Man,” in 1915 it was intended for all readers living during the war and showing patriotism. Bridges co-founded the Society for Pure English in 1913 but the war interrupted it. The group resumed after the war and is the reason for Bridges only trip to the United States in 1924. Bridges went to increase American scholars' interest in the group. Later that same year on Christmas Day Bridges started “The Testament of Beauty”. He didn't finish the poem until 1926 after the death of his daughter Margaret. “The Testament of Beauty” was published in October 1926.
Robert Seymore Bridges died on April 21, 1930. He was eighty-five years old.
Nightingales
by Robert Seymour Bridges
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,
Among the flowers, which in that heavenly air
Bloom the year long!
Nay, barren are those mountains and spent the streams:
Our song is the voice of desire, that haunts our dreams,
A throe of the heart,
Whose pining visions dim, forbidden hopes profound,
No dying cadence nor long sigh can sound,
For all our art.
Alone, aloud in the raptured ear of men
We pour our dark nocturnal secret; and then,
As night is withdrawn
From these sweet-springing meads and bursting boughs of May,
Dream, while the innumerable choir of day
Welcome the dawn.
Winter Nightfall
by Robert Seymour Bridges
The day begins to droop,--
Its course is done:
But nothing tells the place
Of the setting sun.
The hazy darkness deepens,
And up the lane
You may hear, but cannot see,
The homing wain.
An engine pants and hums
In the farm hard by:
Its lowering smoke is lost
In the lowering sky.
The soaking branches drip,
And all night through
The dropping will not cease
In the avenue.
A tall man there in the house
Must keep his chair:
He knows he will never again
Breathe the spring air:
His heart is worn with work;
He is giddy and sick
If he rise to go as far
As the nearest rick:
He thinks of his morn of life,
His hale, strong years;
And braves as he may the night
Of darkness and tears.
Thank you all!
Stormy Lady
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The winner of "Stormy's poetry newsletter & contest" [ASR] is:
You, a curious explorer, creep
through sunshine to the shaded corner
of the garden, where the roses bow
under the weight of dew and crowns
of pink lace petals. You were drawn
into the humid stillness by a rustle
within the overgrown hazelnut.
I hold my breath and study you
from a deck chair. Dressed in floral
and pink, you blend among the blooms;
art in motion that I paint into memory
as you brush aside leaves and peek
inside the dark. Fearless (you can
vanquish dragons with just a song).
A green anole makes a swift dart
to the fence, startling you. “Wizard!”
you shout from the canvas, letting
the lizard disappear as you beam
your pride at me, then wonder,
“Where wizard go?” I don’t know,
but I’m left forever enchanted.
Honorable mention:
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Poetry: April 22, 2020 Issue [#10137]
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