The Quest and Vision

THE QUEST by: James H. Cousins

THEY said: ‘She dwelleth in some place apart,
Immortal Truth, within whose eyes
Who looks may find the secret of the skies
And healing for life’s smart!’

I sought Her in loud caverns underground,--
On heights where lightnings flashed and fell;
I scaled high Heaven; I stormed the gates of Hell,
But Her I never found

Till thro’ the tumults of my Quest I caught
A whisper: ‘Here, within thy heart,
I dwell; for I am thou: behold, thou art
The Seeker--and the Sought.’

VISION by: James H. Cousins

WHEN I from life’s unrest had earned the grace
Of utter ease beside a quiet stream;
When all that was had mingled in a dream
To eyes awakened out of time and place;
Then in the cup of one great moment’s space
Was crushed the living wine from things that seem;
I drank the joy of very Beauty’s gleam,
And saw God’s glory face to shining face.

Almost my brow was chastened to the ground,
But for an inner Voice that said: ‘Arise!
Wisdom is wisdom only to the wise:
Thou art thyself the Royal thou hast crowned:
In Beauty thine own beauty thou hast found,
And thou hast looked on God with God’s own eyes.’

Rreprinted from The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse.
Ed. Nicholson & Lee. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1917.
MORE POEMS BY JAMES H. COUSINS
JAMES H. COUSINS: BIBLIOGRAPHY

The Legend of the Blemished King and Other Poems (1897)
The Quest (1906)
The Bell-Branch (1908)
The Wisdom of the West (1912)
Etain the Beloved and Other Poems (1912)
The Renaissance in India (1918)
The King's Wife (1919)
Sea-Change (1920)
The Cultural Unity of Asia (1922)
Work and Worship: Essays on Culture and Creative Art (1922)
Heathen Essays (1925)
A Tibetan Banner (1926)
Above the Rainbow and Other Poems (1926)
A Wandering Harp: Selected Poems (1932)
A Bardic Pilgrimage (1934)
Collected Poems (1940)
The Work Promethean (1970)
BIOGRAPHIES/CRITICISM
A Wandering Harp: James H. Cousins, a Study. C.N. Mangala. (B.R. Publishing, 1995).
James Henry Cousins: A Study of His Works in the Light of Theosophical Movement. Dilip Kumar Chatterjee. (South Asia Books, 1994).
James Cousins. William A. Dumbleton. (Twayne Publishing, 1980).
RELATED LINKS
James H. Cousins: Poems - An index of poems.
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