Gone From My Sight

I am standing on the seashore,

A ship sails and spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the ocean.

She is an object of beauty

and I stand watching her

till at last she fades on the horizon,

and someone at my side says "she is gone."

Gone where?

Gone from my sight that is all.

She is just as large in the masts, hull and spurs,

as she was when I saw her,

and just as able to bear her load of living freight

to its destination.

The diminished size, the total loss of sight is

in me not in her, and just at the moment

when someone at my side says "She is gone"

There are others who are watching her coming,

and other voices take up the glad shout.

" here she comes."

And that is dying

Henry Van Dyke

This is a beautiful poem written by Henry Van Dyke who was an early American writer, poet, and clergy man. Over the years it has been shared by our family and friends during various memorial services for dear loved ones now departed. My mom requested that it be shared during Nicholas' Requiem Service and was delivered with grace by my dear aunt, Adelita.