The tide recedes but leaves behind
bright seashells on the sand.
The sun goes down but gentle warmth
still lingers on the land.
The music stops, and yet
it echoes on in sweet refrains...
For every joy that passes,
something beautiful remains.
-- M. D. Hughes

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Sunset And Evening Star
And One Clear Call for Me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
when I put out to sea.

But such a tide as moving seems asleep
too full for sound and foam.
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
and after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
when I embark;

For though from out our bourn of time and place
the flood may bear me far
I hope to see my pilot face to face
when I have crossed the bar.

 Alfred Tennyson

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I am standing upon the seashore.  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 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 other voices
ready to take up the glad shout, “There she comes!”

Henry Jackson Van Dyke (1852-1933

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