Cousin, Anne Ross

(1824-1906)

   Born in Hull (her father, David Ross Cundell, M.D., was an assistant surgeon of the 33rd regiment at Waterloo) in 1847, she married William Cousin, a Presbyterian minister. She wrote several hymns, but the best known is "The Sands of Time are Sinking." It is adapted from her poem of nineteen stanzas, In Immanuel's Land (written at Irvine, Ayrshire, in 1854). It appeared first in The Christian Treasury (1857) under the heading "Last Words of Samuel Rutherford." The hymn uses stanzas 1, 5, 13, and 17. In 1910 a stained-glass window to her memory was placed in St. Aidan's United Free Church, Melrose, where her husband was once minister. Some of her other hymns and poems: "In the Songless Night, the Daylight Dreary," "King Eternal, King Immortal," "Lord, Mine Must Be a Spotless Dress," "Christ, What Burdens Bowed Thy Head," "Now is the Time," "Thou That on the Billow," "The Sands of Time Are Sinking," "To Thee and to Thy Christ, O God," "To Thy Father and Thy Mother," "When We Reach Our Peaceful Dwelling."

   Sources: A Sacrifice of Praise: An Anthology of Christian Poetry in English from Caedmon to the Mid-Twentieth Century. James H. Trott, ed. Cumberland House Publishing, 1999. Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition, 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Last Words, the Complete, The Sands of Time Are Sinking (http://www.puritansermons.com/poetry/ruth18.htm). The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Cyber Hymnal (http://www.cyberhymnal.org/index.htm).