Robert Seymour Bridges (
1844-
1930) was an English
poet, holder of the honour of
poet laureate from
1913. He was born in
Walmer,
Kent, and educated at
Corpus Christi College, Oxford, but went in for medicine and practised as a doctor until
1881. His first collection of poems was published in
1873. His college friend,
Gerard Manley Hopkins, a superior poet, owes his present fame to Bridges' efforts in arranging the posthumous publication of his verse. Bridges also wrote plays, with limited success, and literary criticism, including studies of
John Keats and
John Milton. Some of his poems were set to music by
Charles Parry.