Elizabeth Daryush (1887 - 1977) – British poet

Elizabeth’s father, Robert Bridges, was Britain’s Poet Laureate from 1913 until his deth in 1930.

Elizabeth Bridges was born in Marylebone, London, UK on 8th December 1887. Her parents were the physician and poet Robert Bridges and his wife, Mary Monica Bridges, nee Waterhouse – daughter of the architect Alfred Waterhouse.  Elizabeth had a brother - Edward Etingdene Bridges, born in 1893.

Elizabeth married Ali Akbar Daryush, a Persian government official who she met when he was studying at the University of Oxford, and the couple then spent some time in Persia. However, most of the time, they lived at the Bridges' family home, Stockwell, in Boars Hill, near Oxford.

The garden of their Boars Hill home was left by Ali as a memorial garden, named after Elizabeth, and managed by the Oxford Preservation Trust.

Elizabeth published a collection of poems entitled “Sonnets from Hafez and other verses” (Blackwell, Oxford, 1916) and had her poems published in three WW1 anthologies.

Under her married name - Elizabeth Daryush – she published four volumes of her poems entitled “Verses” (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1930, 1932, 1933 and 1934).

Catherine W. Reilly “English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography” (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1978) pp. 66, 104, 3, 29.

"Sorows of a Subaltern" cartoon

“Subalterns” by Elizabeth Daryush

Brunswick, Australia, post-war

She said to one: ‘How glows

My heart at the hot thought

Of battle’s glorious throes!’

He said: ‘For us who fought

Are icy memories

That must for ever freeze

The sunny hours they bought.’

She said to one: ‘How light

Must your freed heart be now,

After the heavy fight!”

He said: ‘Well I don’t know…

The war gave one a shake,

Somehow, knocked one awake…

Now, life’s so deadly slow.’