WHAT IS DYING?

I am standing on the seashore. A ship sails to the morning breeze and starts for the ocean. She is an object of beauty and I stand watching her till at last she fades on the horizon, and someone at my side says, "She is gone." Gone where? Gone from my sight, that is all; she is just as large in the masts, hull and spars as she was when I saw her...
The diminished size and total loss of sight is in me, not in her; and just at the moment when someone at my side says, "She is gone!" there are others who are watching her coming, and other voices take up a glad shout, "There she comes" - that is dying.

Bishop Brent

   Shipmates who have crossed the bar since the Branch began  

Sunset and Evening star,                                  But such a tide as moving seems asleep,

And one clear call for me!                                Too full for sound and foam,

And may there be no moaning of the bar      When that which drew from out the boundless deep 

When I put out to sea                                         Turns again home 

Twilight and evening bell,                               For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place

And after that the dark!                                    The flood may bear me far

And may there be no sadness of farewell,      I hope to see my pilot face to face

When I embark;                                                  When I have crost the bar.

                                     Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-92)