Life Is Eternal

LIFE IS ETERNAL..

~ - Henry Van Dyke

I am standing on 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 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’s gone.”

Gone where? Gone from my sight-that’s all.

She is just as large in mast and hull as she was

when she left my side.

Her diminished size is in me, not her.

And just at the moment when someone says,

“There. She’s gone,”

But, there are other eyes watching her coming,

and other voices shouting,

“Here she comes!”

And that is dying.