A Vision of Life

A Vision of Life is Darrell Figgis's poetry collection, tenderly dedicated to his wife after years of struggle to bring these poems into the world. Gilbert K. Chesterton's introduction presents the book as part of a vibrant revival in English poetry, praising its Elizabethan richness, metrical subtlety, and musical density, while celebrating its refusal of despair in favor of life, beauty, and hope. The poems themselves unfold as a series of visionary encounters and moral tests. In the title poem, a solitary speaker confronts destiny, temptation, duty, and desire as symbolic paths, seductive voices, and stern rebukes compete for the soul's allegiance. Love, sensual pleasure, self-denial, and social obligation all claim authority, until a radiant higher presence reveals truth, justice, and the soul's deeper calling. Elsewhere, a soul climbs a perilous path toward bliss, learning that endurance can enlarge life, while "To a Thrush" finds consolation in a bird's song rising through spring fog. Together, the poems blend lyrical intensity with spiritual searching. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.