In Loving Memory of RC

Life is Eternal

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 her until at length she hangs
like a speck of white cloud just where
the sea and the 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 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 freightto the place of destination.
Her diminished size is in me, not in her;
and just at the moment when some one
at my side says
“There! She’s Gone,”
there are other eyes watching her coming,
and other voices ready to take upthe glad shout “There She Comes!”