I stand upon the seashore [men's voices]

anonymous

this piece won the Six Degree Singers composers' competition 2020

sheet music (PDF master score with permission to print or download an authorised number of copies) available via this website: GBP 1.50 per print-out

the words of this piece have been abridged/adapted from this text (author unknown) which appears in Record of Christian Work, Vol XXIII, Number 5, May 1904

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.

• choral - low voices accompanied