Gone from My Sight

~ Rev. Luther F. Beecher (1813-1903)

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,
and I stand and watch her until she hangs like a speck of white cloud
just where the sea and sky come down to meet and mingle with each other.
Then someone at my side says: “There! She’s 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 just as able to bear her load of living freight
to the place of her destination.
Her diminished size is in me and not in her.And just at that moment
when someone at my side says: “There! She’s gone!”
there are other eyes that are watching for her coming;
and other voices ready to take up the glad shout:
“There she comes!”

And that is—”dying.”