Bridges, Robert Seymour (1844–1930)

English poet and critic. He was poet laureate from 1913 to 1930. His topographical poems and lyrics, which he began to publish in 1873, demonstrate a great command of rhythm and melody. He wrote The Testament of Beauty (1929), a long philosophical poem. In 1918 he edited and published posthumously the poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Sensitivity to the influence of the English countryside and history characterized Bridges's work. He was a lyric poet of classical purity and sometimes of remarkable beauty. His Collected Poems (1912) were widely acclaimed and enlarged editions followed in 1936 and 1953.

Bridges was born in Walmer, Kent, and studied at Oxford; he then studied medicine at St Bartholomew's, London, and practised until 1881.

His early poetry included 24 sonnets entitled The Growth of Love (1876) and the long poems Prometheus, the Firegiver (1883) and Eros and Psyche (1885). World War I inspired the patriotic poem Britannia Victrix (1918) and in 1820 he published other war poems in October and Other Poems. Among his prose writings are influential works on the poets John Milton (1893) and John Keats (1895).