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 her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come down to meet and mingle with each other. Then some one at my side says, “There! She’s gone!” Gone where? Gone from my sight, that is all. She is just as large in the 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 her destination. Her diminished size is in me, and not in her. And just at that moment, when some one at my side says, “There! she’s gone!” there are other eyes that are watching for her coming and other voices ready to take up the glad shout, “There she comes!” And that is dying.
Text from gavroche.org. Public domain in the US and UK.
Where it comes in the service
At a Catholic funeral Mass the readings must come from Scripture, so a poem belongs at the vigil or in the words of remembrance. A Church of England funeral can include poetry; the Church prints poems on its own funeral planning page. In a humanist ceremony, readings of poetry and prose follow the tribute.
Add Gone from My Sight to your booklet, typeset in full, with the order of service around it. You can see the whole booklet before paying anything.
Put Gone from My Sight in my bookletCopyright
Gone from My Sight is in the public domain in the United States (first published 1904) and in the United Kingdom (anonymous work first published 1904 (70 years from publication expired 1974); every named candidate author also died before 1956 (Luther F. Beecher 1903 or 1904, Henry van Dyke 1933)), so the words can be printed in a booklet without permission or a fee.
Printed here as in the source, except: Last sentence: removed the dash in 'And that is--dying.--' (the trailing dash preceded the credit 'Selected').