Read "An Hour" by Henry van Dyke online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
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.