I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my
side spreads her white sails to the morning 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 the 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.
-Henry Van Dyke