Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.

Robert Seymour Bridges 1844–1930

So Sweet Love Seemed

BridgesR

SO sweet love seem’d that April morn,

When first we kiss’d beside the thorn,

So strangely sweet, it was not strange

We thought that love could never change.

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.

And in the end ’t will come to pass

Quite to forget what once he was,

Nor even in fancy to recall

The pleasure that was all in all.

His little spring, that sweet we found,

So deep in summer floods is drown’d,

I wonder, bath’d in joy complete,

How love so young could be so sweet.