name of poem read at my grandmothers funeral

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A poem about a ship sailing out of sight but being seen coming from the other shore was read at my grandmothers funeral 15 years ago. I would love to find the name and a copy of it. Can you help me?

-- gail love (love@bwoodtx.com), March 01, 1999

Answers

Parable of immortality ( A ship leaves . . . ) by Henry Van Dyke - 1852 - 1933

I am standing by 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 peck of white cloud just where the sun 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 she left my side and just as able to bear her load of living freight to the places 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!'

-- ilza (ilza@pobox.com), February 16, 2000.


gail, I too have been looking for the source of this. It goes something to the effect of the following. "Just because my ship sails out of sight, it doesn't mean the story ends, only that the river bends." I'll keep looking.

-- Jean Scott (dezane@hotmail.com), February 16, 2000.

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