"What Is Dying"

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 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 pick up the glad shout:

"Here she comes!"

And that is dying.

                                         Henry Van Dyke