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Literary Manuscripts

Integrated Catalog of Walt Whitman's Literary Manuscripts

Sail Out For Good Eidolon Yacht



  • Whitman Archive Title: Old Age Recitatives
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.00229
  • Repository: Catalog of the Walt Whitman Literary Manuscripts in The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
  • Box: 28
  • Folder: Old Age Recitatives (1891). A.MS. draft.
  • Series: Literary File
  • Date: about 1890
  • Genre: poetry, prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, 30 x 20 cm, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Draft titled "Old Age Recitatives" written on the verso of an envelope and a letter (author unknown) stuck together. Beneath the main title and Whitman's signature is another title, "Sail out for good, Eidólon yacht!" The text of the poem is identical to the published version of "Sail Out for Good, Eidólon Yacht!" (1891). Whitman has written a note about Arena magazine's rejection of the poem in the top right margin.

  • Whitman Archive Title: Sail out for good? for aye, O mystic yacht!
  • Whitman Archive ID: bos.00003
  • Repository: Catalog of the Walt Whitman Literary Manuscripts in The Alice and Rollo G. Silver Collection, Department of Special Collections, Boston University
  • Box: 1
  • Repository Title: Sail Forth O Mystic Yacht
  • Date: 1890 or 1891
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: This is a heavily revised draft of "Sail Out for Good, Eidólon Yacht!" The poem was first published in Lippincott's Magazine in March 1891 with "Sounds of the Winter," "The Unexpress'd," and "After the Argument" under the general title "Old-Age Echoes." The manuscript leaf is made from two scraps pasted together. On the reverse of one of them is an envelope addressed to Whitman, bearing several postmarks from June 1890.

  • Whitman Archive Title: [But outset and sure]
  • Whitman Archive ID: uva.00106
  • Repository ID: #3829-i
  • Repository: Catalog of the Walt Whitman Literary Manuscripts at the Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia
  • Box: 1
  • Folder: 85
  • Date: about 1891
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, 17.5 x 21.5 cm, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: This manuscript contains trial verses for the poem "Sail Out for Good, Eidólon Yacht!," first published in the March 1891 issue of Lippincott's Magazine in a group titled "Old-Age Echoes". The top part of this manuscript has been cut away, leaving the emendations to what would become line 5 of the poem only partly visible. Whitman grouped "Sail Out for Good, Eidólon Yacht!" in his "Second Annex," titled "Good-Bye My Fancy", to the 1891 edition of Leaves of Grass . The pencil note "Sail Out for good, Eidólon Yacht / Good Bye My Fancy / Page 7" appears in the lower left corner, below two new drafts of the ending lines.



  • Whitman Archive Title: Old-Age Recitatives
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.00232
  • Repository: Catalog of the Walt Whitman Literary Manuscripts in The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
  • Box: 28
  • Folder: Old Age Recitatives (1891). Proof Sheets.
  • Series: Literary File
  • Date: about 1891
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 2 leaves, 28 x 21 cm, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
  • Content: Proof pages of six poems collected under the general title "Old-Age Recitatives." The poems included are: "Old Chants" (1891), "On, On the Same,Ye Jocund Twain!" (1891), "Sail Out for Good, Eidólon Yacht!" (1891), "L. of G.'s Purport" (only two lines of the twelve-line poem of the same title first published in 1891), "My task" (published as part of "L. of G.'s Purport" in 1891), and "For us two, reader dear" (1891). At the top of the first page is a note to the printer in Whitman's hand.

  • Whitman Archive Title: Sail out for good, Eidólon yacht
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00067
  • Repository: Catalog of the Walt Whitman Literary Manuscripts in the Walt Whitman Collection, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin
  • Box: bv6
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: Good-bye My Fancy: Sail out for Good, Eidólon Yacht
  • Date: 1890
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Heavily revised draft, nine lines, of "Sail Out for Good, Eidólon Yacht!" which was first published in Lippincott's Magazine in March 1891. It was reprinted in Good-bye My Fancy (1891). Whitman's note at the bottom calls the manuscript rough crude outlines and dates it July 25 1890. Included with the manuscript is a three-page letter to Alfred, Lord Tennyson, dated 1878, drafted on the reverse sides of letters from Berry Young and Richard M. Bucke.

  • Whitman Archive Title: Old-Age Recitatives
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.00231
  • Repository: Catalog of the Walt Whitman Literary Manuscripts in The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
  • Box: 28
  • Folder: Old Age Recitatives (1891). Proof Sheets.
  • Series: Literary File
  • Date: between 1890-1891
  • Genre: poetry, prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, 30.5 x 16 cm, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: A galley proof of a group of six poems titled "Old-Age Recitatives." The poems included are: "Sail out for good, Eidolon yacht!" (first published in 1891), "My task" (published as part of "L. of G.'s Purport" in 1891), "L. of G.'s Purport" (only the first two lines of the poem of the same title published in 1891), "Death dogs my steps" (published as part of "L. of G.'s Purport" in 1891), "For us two, reader dear" (first published in 1891), and "Grand is the seen" (first published in 1891). On the verso is a note to the printer.

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