~ found image (idk)

Gone From My Sight  ~ Henry Van Dyke

 I am standing upon the seashore. 

A ship, at my side, spreads her white 

sails to the moving breeze and starts 

for the blue ocean. 

She is an object of beauty and strength. 

I stand and watch her until, at length, 

she hangs like a speck of white cloud 

just where the sea and sky come 

to mingle with each other. 

Then, someone at my side says, 

"There, she is gone" 

Gone where? 

Gone from my sight. That is all. 

She is just as large in mast and hull

 and spar as she was when she left my side 

and she is just as able to bear her 

load of living freight to her destined port. 

Her diminished size is in me -- not in her. 

And just at the moment when someone

at my side says, "There, she is gone," 

there are other eyes watching her coming,

 and other voices ready to take up the glad shout, 

"Here she comes!" 

And that is dying.

11 March 2012