Explore "An Hour (Lyrics of Labour and Romance)" by Henry Van Dyke on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
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.