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Robert Seymour Bridges Poems

A collection of select Robert Seymour Bridges famous poems that were written by Robert Seymour Bridges or written about the poet by other famous poets. PoetrySoup is a comprehensive educational resource of the greatest poems and poets on history.

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by Bridges, Robert Seymour
 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...Read more of this...



by Bridges, Robert Seymour
 WHEN from the craggy mountain's pathless steep,
Whose flinty brow hangs o'er the raging sea, 
My wand'ring eye beholds the foamy deep,
I mark the restless surge­and think of THEE. 
The curling waves, the passing breezes move, 
Changing and treach'rous as the breath of LOVE; 
The "sad similitude" awakes my smart, 
And thy dear image twines about my heart. 

When at...Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
 I visited the place where we last met.
Nothing was changed, the gardens were well-tended,
The fountains sprayed their usual steady jet;
There was no sign that anything had ended
And nothing to instruct me to forget.

The thoughtless birds that shook out of the trees,
Singing an ecstasy I could not share,
Played cunning in my thoughts. Surely in these
Pleasures there could not be a...Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
 Awake, my heart, to be loved, awake, awake!

The darkness silvers away, the morn doth break,
It leaps in the sky: unrisen lustres slake
The o'ertaken moon. Awake, O heart, awake!

She too that loveth awaketh and hopes for thee:
Her eyes already have sped the shades that flee,
Already they watch the path thy feet shall take:
Awake, O heart, to be loved, awake, awake!

And...Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
 '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
face him in bright farewell, ere they creep from their pomp
naked beneath the darkness;- while to mortal eyes
'tis given, ifso they close not of...Read more of this...



by Bridges, Robert Seymour
 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?
I will not let thee go.

I will not let thee go.
If thy words' breath could scare thy deeds,
As the soft south can blow
And toss the feathered seeds,
Then might I let thee go.

I will not let thee go.
Had not the...Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
 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 
Whom England call'd and bade "Set my arm free 
To obey my will and save my honour fair," -- 
What day the foe presumed on her despair 
And she herself had trust in...Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
 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.

On such a night, when Air has loosed
Its guardian grasp on blood and brain,
Old terrors then of god or ghost
Creep from their caves to life again;

And Reason kens he herits in
A haunted house. Tenants unknown
Assert their...Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
 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...Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
 the history of melancholia
includes all of us. 
me, I writhe in dirty sheets
while staring at blue walls
and nothing. 
I have gotten so used to melancholia
that 
I greet it like an old 
friend. 
I will now do 15 minutes of grieving
for the lost redhead,
I tell the gods. 
I do it and feel quite bad
quite sad,
then I rise
CLEANSED
even though nothing 
is...Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
 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,...Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
 Perfect little body, without fault or stain on thee, 
With promise of strength and manhood full and fair! 
Though cold and stark and bare, 
The bloom and the charm of life doth awhile remain on thee. 

Thy mother's treasure wert thou;—alas! no longer 
To visit her heart with wondrous joy; to be 
Thy father's pride:—ah, he 
Must gather his...Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
 Sense with keenest edge unusèd, 
Yet unsteel'd by scathing fire; 
Lovely feet as yet unbruisèd 
On the ways of dark desire; 
Sweetest hope that lookest smiling
O'er the wilderness defiling! 

Why such beauty, to be blighted 
By the swarm of foul destruction? 
Why such innocence delighted, 
When sin stalks to thy seduction? 
All the litanies e'er chaunted 
Shall not keep...Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
 Angel spirits of sleep, 
White-robed, with silver hair, 
In your meadows fair, 
Where the willows weep, 
And the sad moonbeam 
On the gliding stream 
Writes her scatter'd dream: 

Angel spirits of sleep, 
Dancing to the weir 
In the hollow roar 
Of its waters deep; 
Know ye how men say 
That ye haunt no more 
Isle and grassy shore 
With...Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
 1
They that in play can do the thing they would,
Having an instinct throned in reason's place,
--And every perfect action hath the grace
Of indolence or thoughtless hardihood--
These are the best: yet be there workmen good
Who lose in earnestness control of face,
Or reckon means, and rapt in effort base
Reach to their end by steps well understood. 
Me whom thou sawest of...Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
 Belov'd of all to whom that Muse is dear 
Who hid her spirit of rapture from the Greek, 
Whereby our art excelleth the antique, 
Perfecting formal beauty to the ear; 
Thou that hast been in England many a year 
The interpreter who left us nought to seek, 
Making Beethoven's inmost passion speak, 
Bringing the soul of great Sebastian near....Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
 Since now from woodland mist and flooded clay 
I am fled beside the steep Devonian shore, 
Nor stand for welcome at your gothic door, 
'Neath the fair tower of Magdalen and May, 
Such tribute, Warren, as fond poets pay 
For generous esteem, I write, not more 
Enhearten'd than my need is, reckoning o'er 
My life-long wanderings on the heavenly...Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
 Brothers in blood! They who this wrong began 
To wreck our commonwealth, will rue the day 
When first they challenged freeman to the fray, 
And with the Briton dared the American. 
Now are we pledged to win the Rights of man: 
Labour and Justice now shall have their way, 
And in a League of Peace -- God grant we...Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
 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; 
Already in glimpses of the tarnish'd sky 
The sun is warm and beckons to the larch, 
And where the covert hazels interarch 
Their tassell'd twigs, fair beds...Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
 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...Read more of this...


Book: Shattered Sighs