The Sun-Dial at Wells CollegeThe shadow by my finger cast Divides the future from the past: Before it, sleeps the unborn hour In darkness, and beyond thy power: Behind its unreturning line, The vanished hour, no longer thine: One hour alone is in thy hands, -- The NOW on which the shadow stands. Henry Van Dyke
About This Quote

This quote is a classic example of the power of persistence. The poet is asking about the future, but he is also asking about the present. He is asking how to use the hours that are now in his hands, and he is asking how to use the NOW. He says that if he could know what was going to happen in the future, he would want to know.

He would want some kind of knowledge of what was coming up next; he would want to know what caused what. But he does not know what will happen tomorrow afternoon, or next week, or next month, or next year. And so he looks ahead some distance (at some point in the future), but there is no way to predict what will be there then.

And so he asks about that time as if it were now, and how to use that time as if it were now. This poem presents an interesting question: How can we use this brief time that is now ours? How can we use it well? How can we make it count for something, good or bad?

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More Quotes By Henry Van Dyke
  1. Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity.
  2. The Sun-Dial at Wells CollegeThe shadow by my finger cast Divides the future from the past: Before it, sleeps the unborn hour In darkness, and beyond thy power: Behind its unreturning line, The vanished hour, no longer thine: One hour alone is in thy hands,...
  3. He that planteth a tree is a servant of God, he provideth a kindness for many generations, and faces that he hath not seen shall bless him.
  4. Born in the East, and clothed in Oriental form and imagery, the Bible walks the ways of all the world with familiar feet, and enters land after land to find its own everywhere. It has learned to speak in hundreds of languages to the heart...
  5. But this I know. Those who seek Him will do well to look among the poor and the lowly, the sorrowful and the oppressed.
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