An Hour ~ A Poem by Henry Van Dyke

An Hour

Henry Van Dyke

You only promised me a single hour:
  But in that hour I journeyed through a year
  Of life: the joy of finding you,—the fear
Of losing you again,—the sense of power
To make you all my own,—the sudden shower
  Of tears that came because you were more dear
  Than words could ever tell you,—then,—the clear
Soft rapture when I plucked love’s crimson flower.
An hour,—a year,—I felt your bosom rise
  And fall with mystic tides, and saw the gleam
Of undiscovered stars within your eyes,—
  A year,—an hour? I knew not, for the stream
Of love had carried me to Paradise,
  Where all the forms of Time are like a dream.

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