My Ship and I

Robert Louis Stevenson 1850 (Edinburgh) – 1894 (Vailima, Samoa)



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 a 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 dive-dive-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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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 14, 2023

48 sec read
250

Quick analysis:

Scheme XABBA XCDDC XEFFE
Closest metre Iambic heptameter
Characters 766
Words 155
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 5, 5, 5

Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer. more…

All Robert Louis Stevenson poems | Robert Louis Stevenson Books

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