'Ships' and 'Boats' & 2 great poems

I collect items from 'Ships' and 'Boats';
also graphics and "whatnots".

We have many nautical items in use
and on display in our home.





... Gone from My Sight
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. I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

Then someone at my side says: "There, she is 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 she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port. Her diminished size is in me, not in her.

And just at the moment when someone at my side says: "There, she is gone!" there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to takeup the glad shout: "Here she comes!"

And that is dying.
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THE SHIP OF LIFE by John T. Baker

Along the shore I spy a ship
As she sets out to sea;
She spreads her sails and sniffs the breeze
And slips away from me.

I watch her fading image shrink,
As she moves on and on,
Until at last she’s but a speck,
Then someone says, “She’s gone.”

Gone where? Gone only from our sight
And from our farewell cries;
That ship will somewhere reappear
To other eager eyes.

Beyond the dim horizon’s rim
Resound the welcome drums,
And while we’re crying, “There she goes!
”They’re shouting, “Here she comes!”

We’re built to cruise for but a while
Upon this trackless sea
Until one day we sail away...
Into infinity.