Page 16 - Wealden Celebrant Poetry Collection By Michael Gosden

Loving Memories (Your Gentle Face)
Your gentle face and patient smile - with sadness we recall,
You had a kindly word for each - and died beloved by all.

The voice is mute and stilled the heart, that loved us well and true,
Ah, bitter was the trial to part, from one so good as you.

You are not forgotten loved one, nor will you ever be,
As long as life and memory last - we will remember thee.

We miss you now, our hearts are sore,
As time goes by we miss you more.

Your loving smile, your gentle face,
No one can fill your empty place.
Author Unknown

Parable On Immortality
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
until at last she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the
sea and the 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!”
Henry Van Dyke