Parable of Immortality

by: Henry Van Dyke

I’m standing upon the sea shore

A white ship at my side is spreading 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 as sea and sky seem to mingle with each other

Then someone at my side says

“There. She’s gone”

“Gone where?”

“Gone from my sight”

That is all

She’s just as large and mast and whole

As she was when she left my sight

And she’s just as able to bare her load of living freight

To their destined port

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

(Submitted by Qadar Ahmed Al Ansari)