Time Is
Henry van Dyke wrote this for the sundial at Katrina Trask’s community retreat at Yaddo, New York.
Henry van Dyke wrote this for the sundial at Katrina Trask’s community retreat at Yaddo, New York.
Katrina Trask founded, funded and following a heart attack in 1913 lived at Yaddo, the artists’ community in Saratoga Springs, New York — her late husband, Spencer Trask, had been a Wall Street banker. One of her friends was Henry van Dyke, a professor of English literature at Princeton from 1899 to 1923, who wrote these lines for her sundial.
Hours fly,
Flowers die
New days,
New ways,
Pass by.
Love stays.
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 not.*
From the ‘The Poems of Henry van Dyke’ (1937) by Henry van Dyke (1852-1932).
* See also William Shakespeare’s reflections on a similar theme, in I’ll Tell You Who Time Gallops Withal.
1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?
2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?
3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?
Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
How does time seem to move for the impatient?
It seems to drag its feet frustratingly.
Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
Time passes at a steady rate. Often it does not seem like it. It depends on our mood.
See if you can include one or more of these words in your answer.
IPerceive. IIVary. IIIWhether.