This has been my favorite poem for many decades. I have just discovered that it is all over the internet, and that it is even published in books of American poetry and literature. The tragedy is that it is posted as being penned by 'Anonymous.' The author is not anonymous at all. His name was Page Belnap. He was a wonderful man, and he died only a few weeks after writing this phenomenal piece. I worked with him, and after his death, our company had this poem inscribed onto a bronze plaque with his name on it. It was still on the wall as one of our most prized possessions many years later when I left the company.

The other tragedy is that the poem that is showing up on the internet has the wrong title, and has been changed from his original. Only slightly, but changed enough that it's simply not what he wrote. He did not call it, "The Ship That Sails." He called it, "I'd Rather Be."

Here is the original.