"Gone From My Sight"

This beautiful extract from the American poet Henry Van Dyke was read recently at a family funeral and I think it is one of the most beautiful readings on the subject I have ever heard.

It's interesting that Van Dyke was also the author of 'Joyful, joyful..' - the beautiful lyrics added to that most beautifully joyful work of Beethoven 'Ode to Joy'. I knew little about the author before, and simply from reading his words, he sounds like such a brilliant man.

"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 until at last 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 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 place 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 their voices ready to take up the glad shouts 'Here she comes!'"