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Horizon

I am standing upon that foreshore.

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 her until at length

she hangs like a speck of white cloud,

just where the sea and sky come down

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's just as large in mast and spar and hull

as ever she was when she left my side;

just as able to bear her load of living freight

to the place of her destination.

Her diminished size is in me, not in her.

~

And just at that moment when someone at my side says

'There, she's gone' there are other eyes

watching her coming and other voices

to take up the glad shout 'here she comes'

And that is dying.

~