A Poem in November, the Month of All Souls

Gone From My Sight

I am standing upon the seashore.
A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the 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.
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

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