Edwin Arlington Robinson

Lost Anchors

Like a dry fish

The opening simile does double work—the sailor is literally dried out from sun and age, but also stranded in the wrong element, a sea creature stuck on land.

Like a dry fish flung inland far from shore,
There lived a sailor, warped and ocean-browned,
Who told of an old vessel, harbor-drowned

harbor-drowned

A ship drowned in harbor, not at sea—the irony of finding safety only to sink anyway. The vessel never made it out to do its work.

And out of mind a century before,
Where divers, on descending to explore
A legend that had lived its way around
The world of ships, in the dark hulk had found

seized and seen no more

The anchors were confiscated or impounded, then lost to history. The ship's tools for staying put were taken, leaving nothing but the story.

Anchors, which had been seized and seen no more.
Improving a dry leisure to invest
Their misadventure with a manifest
Analogy that he may read who runs,

he may read who runs

Biblical reference to Habakkuk 2:2—a message so clear anyone rushing past can understand it. The sailor is making his story into an obvious moral lesson.

The sailor made it old as ocean grass—
Telling of much that once had come to pass

should have had no sons

The devastating final turn—the sailor wishes he'd never been born. His mother's mistake was having children at all, or at least having him.

With him, whose mother should have had no sons.
The NationEdwin Arlington Robinson
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

The Sonnet's Double Structure

Robinson builds this as a Petrarchan sonnet with a brutal twist. The octave (first eight lines) tells the sailor's story about the sunken ship and its lost anchors. The sestet (final six lines) reveals what he's really doing: turning that maritime legend into a thinly veiled autobiography.

The phrase "Improving a dry leisure" is key—the sailor is filling his empty retirement by crafting this analogy. He's taken a diving expedition story and weaponized it into self-commentary. The ship that sank in harbor before it could sail becomes a metaphor for a wasted life.

"Old as ocean grass" suggests both ancient and worthless—seaweed, the detritus of the sea. The sailor makes his analogy seem like timeless wisdom, but Robinson shows us a bitter old man manufacturing meaning from his failures. The anchors that were "seized and seen no more" parallel whatever held him back, whatever was taken from him that prevented him from living fully.

Robinson's Failed Men

This is classic Edwin Arlington Robinson—a portrait of masculine failure and regret. Like his famous characters Miniver Cheevy and Richard Cory, this sailor represents someone fundamentally disappointed by existence.

The final line's brutality is characteristic of Robinson's work in the 1910s-20s. "Whose mother should have had no sons" doesn't just express suicidal ideation—it's a rejection of his entire bloodline, his family's continuation. The plural "sons" (not "a son") suggests he's condemning his brothers too, or the very idea of his family reproducing.

CONTEXT Robinson himself struggled with alcoholism, poverty, and depression for much of his life. He was supported by charitable friends and patrons, never quite achieving the success he wanted until late in life. His poems obsessively return to men who feel they've been "seized" by circumstance and lost to history—like those anchors, confiscated and forgotten in the dark.