“the moon and the stars / were the gifts you gave / to the dark, and the endless skies”

[larryhammer]

For Poetry Monday:

“The evening darkens over,” Robert Bridges

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.


While Bridges was Poet Laureate 1913-30, I confess I mostly think of him as Hopkins’s university friend and literary executor.

---L.

Subject quote from The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, written by Ewan MacColl, sung by Peggy Seeger. (Roberta Flack covered it later.)

Comments

[cmcmck]

THat's also how I tend to think of him- my complete Hopkins was one edited by him.

That said, he's not a bad poet!

[larryhammer]

Not bad, but going by what I've read, rarely inspired.

[sovay]

While Bridges was Poet Laureate 1913-30, I confess I mostly think of him as Hopkins’s university friend and literary executor.

He reads like he read a lot of Housman.

[larryhammer]

Heh. He's actually somewhat older, actually. He spent a lot of time, though, trying to adapt classical meters into English, so it's possible they were both drinking from the same well.

[sovay]

He spent a lot of time, though, trying to adapt classical meters into English, so it's possible they were both drinking from the same well.

"Here's the weather report and we are too much apart" does have big Greek lyric energy.

[larryhammer]

It does indeed.

[swan_tower]

Phrased more tersely, it could also be Japanese . . .