At Tim Russert’s funeral (18 June 2008) Maria Shriver read an abbreviated version of this poem, written by Henry Van Dyke:A Parable of Immortality, by Henry Van Dyke
“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 other voices ready to take up the glad shout, “Here she comes!”
Dr Geoff Pound
Image: “A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean.”