What is Dying?

I am standing on the sea shore
A ship at my side spreads her
white sails in the morning breeze
and starts for the blue ocean.
She is an object of beauty and I
stand and watch her until at last
she fades on the horizon.

Then someone at my side says
"There she has gone" -
Gone where?
Gone from my sight - that is all.
She is just as large in the mast,
hull and spars as she was
when she left my side.......

The diminished size
and total loss of sight
is in me, not in her,
and just at the moment when
someone at my side says
"She is gone"
others take up the glad shout
"There she comes".

And that is dying. An horizon is just the limit of our sight.
Bishop Brent