Henry Van Dyke

Protestant clergyman and writer, born in Germantown, Pennsylvania, USA. The son of a Presbyterian minister, he grew up in New York City, was educated at Princeton, and held pastorates in Newport, RI, and New York City. In 1899–1923 he was a professor of English at Princeton. His publications included poetry, essays, and short stories on religious and secular themes. He was American ambassador to The Netherlands and Luxembourg (1913–16), and served as a naval chaplain during World War 1.

Henry van Dyke (1852 – 1933) was an American author, educator, and clergyman.

He chaired the committee that wrote the first Presbyterian printed liturgy, The Book of Common Worship of 1906. He compiled several short stories in The Blue Flower named after a story by Novalis in 1902.

Some of Van Dyke's poems include:

Gone From My Sight

I am standing upon the seashore. 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. 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 take up the glad shout: "Here she comes!"

And that is dying.