My Ship and I

Robert Louis Stevenson · 1885

Catalog grade guidance: K–5 — Short children’s lyric; good for early memorization and reading aloud.

17 content lines · 163 words · Est. recitation about 1 min 31 sec (approx.)

Public-domain text for reading and recitation practice. Source: Project Gutenberg #136.Estimated time uses ~120 words/minute plus short pauses—not a contest rule.

My Ship and I

  O it's I that am the captain of a tidy little ship,
       Of a ship that goes a sailing on the pond;
  And my ship it keeps a-turning all around and all about;
  But when I'm a little older, I shall find the secret out
       How to send my vessel sailing on beyond.

  For I mean to grow as little as the dolly at the helm,
       And the dolly I intend to come alive;
  And with him beside to help me, it's a-sailing I shall go,
  It's a-sailing on the water, when the jolly breezes blow
       And the vessel goes a divie-divie-dive.

  O it's then you'll see me sailing through the rushes and the reeds,
       And you'll hear the water singing at the prow;
  For beside the dolly sailor, I'm to voyage and explore,
  To land upon the island where no dolly was before,
       And to fire the penny cannon in the bow.


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