A PARABLE OF IMMORTALITY
by Henry Van Dyke
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 until at last she hangs like a
spec of white cloud just where the sea and sky
come down to mingle with each other.
Then someone at my side says, "There she goes!"
Gone where? Gone from my sight -- that is all.
She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as
she was when the left my side and just as able
to bear her load of living freight to the place
of destination. Her diminished size is in me,
not in her.
And just at the moment when someone at my side says,
"There she goes!" there are other eyes watching her
coming and other voices ready to take up the glad shout,
"Here she comes!"
With loving memory of Bobbe. . .
Tilmon and Anne Chamlee