The Ship
I am standing upon a 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.
"She is gone."
Gone from my sight. That is all.
She is just as large in mast and hull as she was
when she left my side,
and 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 at just the moment when someone at my side says,
"She is gone"
there are other voices ready to take up the glad shout:
"Here she comes!"
Anonymous