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
