ROBERT BRIDGES

Were I a cloud I'd gather My skirts up in the air, And fly well know whither, And rest I well know where.

I know that if odour were visible, as colour is, I'd see the summer garden in rainbow clouds.

I live on hope and that I think do all Who come into this world.

So sweet love seemed that April morn. When first we kissed beside the thorn, So strangely sweet, it was not strange We thought that love could never change.

Beauty, the eternal Spouse of the Wisdom of God and Angel of his Presence thru' all creation.

When first we met we did not guess That Love would prove so hard a master.

My delight and thy delight Walking, like two angels white, In the gardens of the night.

Since to be loved endures, To love is wise.

But I can tell - let truth be told - That love will change in growing old; Though day by day is nought to see, So delicate his motions be.

Good melody is never out of fashion

To-morrow it seemLike the empty words of a dreamRemembered on waking.

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?

Beauty is the highest of all these occult influences, the quality of appearances that thru' the sense wakeneth spiritual emotion in the mind of man.

Our stability is but balance, and conduct lies In masterful administration of the unforseen.

There is a hill beside the silver Thames, Shady with birch and beech and odorous pine; And brilliant underfoot with thousand gems, Steeply the thickets to his floods decline.

Nature hav no music; nor would ther be for theeany better melody in the April woods at dawnthan what an old stone-deaf labourer, lying awakeo'night in his comfortless attic, might perchancebe aware of, when the rats run amok in his thatch?

Spring goeth all in white, / Crowned with milk-white may: / In fleecy flocks of light / O'er heaven the white clouds stray.

O youth whose hope is high, Who dost to Truth aspire, Whether thou live or die, O look not back nor tire.

O soul, be patient: thou shalt find A little matter mend all this; Some strain of music to thy mind, Some praise for skill not spent amiss.

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.

Man's Reason is in such deep insolvency to sense,that tho' she guide his highest flight heav'nward, and teach himdignity morals manners and human comfort,she can delicatly and dangerously bedizenthe rioting joys that fringe the sad pathways of Hell.

Unto us all our days are love's anniversaries, each one In turn hath ripened something of our happiness.

Beauty being the best of all we know sums up the unsearchable and secret aims of nature.

The lonely season in lonely lands, when fled Are half the birds, and mists lie low, and the sun Is rarely seen, nor strayeth far from his bed; The short days pass unwelcomed one by one.