The Walt Whitman Archive
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About this Item
Title: The Dismantled Ship
Creator: Walt Whitman
Date: February 23, 1888
Whitman Archive ID: per.00097
Source: New York Herald 23 February 1888: 4. Our transcription is based on a digital image of a microfilm copy of an original issue. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the periodical poems, see our statement of editorial policy.
Contributors to digital file: Elizabeth Lorang, April Lambert, and Susan Belasco
 image 1 |  cropped image 1 |
The Dismantled Ship.1
In some unused lagoon, some nameless bay,
On sluggish, lonesome, muddy waters, anchor'd
near the shore,2
near the shore,2
An old, dismasted, gray and batter'd ship,
disabled, done and broken,3
disabled, done and broken,3
After free voyages to all the seas of earth, haul'd
up at last and hawser'd tight,
up at last and hawser'd tight,
Lies rusting, mouldering.
WALT WHITMAN.
Notes:
1. Reprinted in the "Sands at Seventy" annex to Leaves of Grass (1888). [back]
2. In the "Sands at Seventy" printing of this poem, Whitman omitted "muddy" from the second line. [back]
3. In the "Sands at Seventy" printing of this poem, "and broken" does not appear in the third line. [back]