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An Hour

Henry Van Dyke (1852–1933) · 1925

iambic pentameter · 14 lines · from The Poems of Henry Van Dyke

You only promised me a single hour:But in that hour I journeyed through a yearOf life: the joy of finding you,--the fearOf losing you again,--the sense of powerTo make you all my own,--the sudden showerOf tears that came because you were more dearThan words could ever tell you,--then,--the clearSoft rapture when I plucked love's crimson flower.

An hour,--a year,--I felt your bosom riseAnd fall with mystic tides, and saw the gleamOf undiscovered stars within your eyes,--A year,--an hour? I knew not, for the streamOf love had carried me to Paradise,Where all the forms of Time are like a dream.

About this text

An Hour is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poems of Henry Van Dyke, Project Gutenberg ebook #16229; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.

Cite as: Henry Van Dyke, An Hour, in The Poems of Henry Van Dyke (1925), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16229, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/van-dyke-poems/an-hour.html, id L22821.

Form and metre

An Hour is 14 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 97%).

See other poems in iambic pentameter.

Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.

Rhyme words, stanza by stanza

The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.

1 ABBAABBA hour^A · year^B · fear^B · power^A · shower^A · dear^B · clear^B · flower^A
2 ABAB-B rise^A · gleam^B · eyes^A · stream^B · paradise · dream^B

Scansion, line by line

Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic pentameter. How this is done.

Line	Syl.	Stress
You only promised me a single hour:	11	·/˘/˘··/˘/˘
But in that hour I journeyed through a year	10	···/·/˘···
Of life: the joy of finding you,--the fear	10	·····/˘···
Of losing you again,--the sense of power	11	·/˘·˘/···/˘
To make you all my own,--the sudden shower	11	·······/˘/˘
Of tears that came because you were more dear	10	··········
Than words could ever tell you,--then,--the clear	10	···/˘·····
Soft rapture when I plucked love's crimson flower.	11	·/˘····/˘/˘
An hour,--a year,--I felt your bosom rise	10	·/·····/˘·
And fall with mystic tides, and saw the gleam	10	···/˘·····
Of undiscovered stars within your eyes,--	10	··˘/˘·····
A year,--an hour? I knew not, for the stream	10	···/······
Of love had carried me to Paradise,	10	···/˘··/˘·
Where all the forms of Time are like a dream.	10	··········

The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.

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