#robert bridges

[americaisdead]

robert bridges house off sunset blvd., gutted by fire. pacific palisades. january 2025

© tag christof

[glennk56]

Chubby actors on British TV in the 1960s. Robert Bridges. Robert Bridges only had 43 credits in his career. He did make one appearance in The Saint and these photos are from The Baron.

[tunglo]

Father Ignatius just keeps giving...

Digby Mackworth Dolben - he of the tragic schoolboy crush genre of poetry - was apparently a novice in Ignatius' order! Digby was so unrepentantly blatant in his obsession with an older boy at school that he was almost kicked out of Eton. (no amount of exclamation marks would be sufficient)

Anyway, he promised his parents he'd try to keep his interest in both boys and Ritualism on the downlow, but wrote to his cousin (Robert Bridges) in Jan 1864:

I am to have an introduction to Brother Ignatius of Claydon!!!

Over the next few months Digby became completely obsessed with Ignatius and the Order - so much so that he didn't want to go back to Eton after Easter break. Ignatius invited him to at least one sleepover at Ascot Priory where he met Pusey and Lydia Sellon during this time, and Digby dutifully went around calling himself Brother Dominic and trying to convert all his friends to the cause. He left Eton at Christmas '64.

In '65, when his tutor was ill, Digby wrote to Robert Bridges' mother and asked if he could come stay for a bit, and learn alongside her younger son and his tutor. She told him absolutely no way because she didn't trust him not to corrupt her son with his papism! Despite his promises to be 'discreet', she wouldn't back down. (All his letters to Robert were still waxing lyrical about Ignatius and the Order, so I guess it wasn't without reason.)

To cheer him up Bridges let him visit at Oxford and introduced Digby to Gerald Manley Hopkins who fell in immediate infatuation. Per Wiki: Hopkins's biographer Robert Bernard Martin asserts that Hopkins's meeting with Dolben, "was, quite simply, the most momentous emotional event of [his] undergraduate years, probably of his entire life". They exchanged letters up to Digby's untimely death and Hopkins wrote poetry for him.

Digby was then sent to Boughrood to prepare for Oxford, and his classmates there remembered him as "a young monk of mediaeval times. … In appearance he was tall and slight, with a complexion of transparent pallor. He had good features, and fine dark melancholy eyes. Do you remember Dore's picture of a young monk sitting in chapel among a lot of older men, & gazing sadly into vacancy? He was rather like that."

He was still obsessed with Ignatius and the Order, to the point he was travelling to Llanthony Abbey and back in full monkish garb. When he wasn't busy telling everyone he was going to be a monk, he tended to go on about his crush from Eton. Throughout late '66 / early '67 everyone's recollection seems to be of a sad pale lonely young man, not much looking forward to Oxford but determined to see out his promise to his father that he wouldn't become a Catholic until after he graduated...

He drowned on June 28th in the River Welland, presumably after fainting in the water while swimming. Robert Bridges later collected his poetry and published it.

On river banks my love was born, And cradled 'neath a budding thorn, Whose flowers never more shall kiss Lips half so sweet and red as his. Beneath him lily-islands spread With broad cool leaves a floating bed: Around, to meet his opening eyes, The ripples danced in glad surprise. I found him there when spring was new, When winds were soft and skies were blue; I marvelled not, although he drew My whole soul to him, for I knew That he was born to be my king, And I was only born to sing With faded lips and feeble lays His love and beauty all my days...

[mvaljean525]

I have loved flowers that fade, Within whose magic tents Rich hues have marriage made With sweet unmemoried scents: A honeymoon delight, A joy of love at sight, That ages in an hour My song be like a flower!.

I have loved airs that die Before their charm is writ Along a liquid sky Trembling to welcome it. Notes, that with pulse of fire Proclaim the spirit's desire, Then die, and are nowhere My song be like an air!.

Die, song, die like a breath, And wither as a bloom; Fear not a flowery death, Dread not an airy tomb! Fly with delight, fly hence! 'Twas thine love's tender sense To feast; now on thy bier Beauty shall shed a tear.

----

I have loved flowers that fade

Robert Bridges  1844-1930

----

Graphic - Jacob De Backer  c.1555-c.1591

[ihaveonlymydreams]

Noel: Christmas Eve 1913

By Robert Bridges

Pax hominibus bonae voluntatis

A frosty Christmas Eve

when the stars were shining

Fared I forth alone

where westward falls the hill,

And from many a village

in the water'd valley

Distant music reach'd me

peals of bells aringing:

The constellated sounds

ran sprinkling on earth's floor

As the dark vault above

with stars was spangled o'er.

Then sped my thoughts to keep

that first Christmas of all

When the shepherds watching

by their folds ere the dawn

Heard music in the fields

and marveling could not tell

Whether it were angels

or the bright stars singing.

Now blessed be the tow'rs

that crown England so fair

That stand up strong in prayer

unto God for our souls

Blessed be their founders

(said I) an' our country folk

Who are ringing for Christ

in the belfries to-night

With arms lifted to clutch

the rattling ropes that race

Into the dark above

and the mad romping din.

But to me heard afar

it was starry music

Angels' song, comforting

as the comfort of Christ

When he spake tenderly

to his sorrowful flock:

The old words came to me

by the riches of time

Mellow'd and transfigured

as I stood on the hill

Heark'ning in the aspect

of th' eternal silence.

[mrdirtybear]

Robert Seymour Bridges (1844 – 1930) was an English poet who was Poet Laureate from 1913 to 1930. He was a doctor by training and he achieved literary fame late in life. His poems reflected his deep Christian faith, and he added to the number of well-known hymns where the publishing of hymns was a vital part of the publishing industry, and his poems were set to music as songs by composers like Holst, Finzi, and Hubert Parry. It was Bridges who retrieved the work of fellow Christian poet Gerard Manley Hopkins from obscurity.

[1five1two]

The evening darkens over

After a day so bright,

The windcapt waves discover

That wild will be the night.

Robert Bridges

[virgin-martyr]

We pour our dark nocturnal secret;

Robert Bridges, excerpt from “Nightingales”