A Sailor Gave His Sonny Lyrics
A sailor gives his boy nearly half a pint of money and a sensible shopping job, three times. Each time the boy ends up doing something else: burying the coins, buying a rose, and paying for cheese and crackers for a mouse.
A Sailor Gave His Sonny
A sailor gave his sonny
Nearly half a pint of money
And sent him out to buy a ton of coal;
But he met a poor old miser
Who told him it were wiser
To bury all his money in a hole.
A sailor gave his sonny
Nearly half a pint of money
And told him he should buy a suit of clothes;
But he saw a pretty maiden
With all kinds of posies laden,
And he gave her all his money for a rose.
Then the sailor gave his sonny
Nearly half a pint of money
To buy a little garden and a house;
But he found him the next day,
In a shop on Yesler Way,
A-buying cheese and crackers for a mouse.
Printed from https://nurseryrhymes.co/a-sailor-gave-his-sonny/
- Type
- Poems for Children
- Written by
- Leroy F. Jackson
- Tune
- A jaunty sea-chanty swing, with the first two lines the same each time
- Best for ages
- 4 to 9 years
What Does A Sailor Gave His Sonny Mean?
The first joke is the money: a pint is a measure for liquids like milk, so "half a pint of money" is a pile of coins you could pour. Sonny is a fond word for a boy. Each verse repeats the set-up and changes the result. The first time, a miser, someone who hoards money, tells him to bury it, so no coal is bought. The second time, a pretty maiden carrying posies (small bunches of flowers) makes him give all his money for one rose. The third time, he is found the next day in a shop buying cheese and crackers for a mouse, and the house and garden are forgotten.
Each time, the sensible plan gives way to something small, kind or silly. Yesler Way is the name of a street in Seattle, in the United States, named for the sawmill owner Henry Yesler. The poem does not say which city it means, so it may only be a name that sounded right.
History and Origin
Jackson published this poem in 1918 among his rhymes for children. The sailor and the sonny are the poem's own characters, and neither is named.
Learning Activities
- What would you buy? ask what the child would do with half a pint of money, and what they were sent for.
- Act the shop: play shopkeeper and customer, with the customer always ending up buying something unexpected.
- Pint measure: pour half a pint of water into a jug to see what the sailor gave his sonny.
- Finish the verse: add a fourth verse in the same pattern with a new shopping job.