I Saw a Ship A-Sailing Lyrics
Silk sails, golden masts, a hold full of apples and a crew of twenty-four white mice. The captain is a duck. This is the sort of ship small children would design themselves.
I Saw a Ship A-Sailing
I saw a ship a-sailing,
A-sailing on the sea;
And, oh! it was all laden
With pretty things for thee!
There were comfits in the cabin,
And apples in the hold;
The sails were made of silk,
And the masts were made of gold.
The four-and-twenty sailors
That stood between the decks,
Were four-and-twenty white mice
With chains about their necks.
The captain was a duck,
With a packet on his back;
And when the ship began to move,
The captain said, "Quack! Quack!"
Printed from https://nurseryrhymes.co/i-saw-a-ship-a-sailing/
- Type
- Mother Goose, Animal Rhymes
- Tune
- Spoken rhyme
- Best for ages
- 2 to 7 years
What Does I Saw a Ship A-Sailing Mean?
A ship sails by, loaded with presents for "thee", the child listening. Comfits are sugar-coated sweets, and the hold is the storage space below deck. The four-and-twenty sailors turn out to be white mice wearing collars, and the captain, of course, just says "Quack! Quack!" when the ship sets off.
History and Origin
The rhyme is printed in The Real Mother Goose (1916), and versions of it go back to English collections of the 1800s. Its picture of a magical treasure ship was a favorite with illustrators, and old editions often give it a full page: silk sails and golden masts are hard to resist.
Learning Activities
- Draw the ship: sails of silk, masts of gold, mice on deck and a duck at the wheel.
- Quack at the end: let your child shout the captain's line.
- What's in the hold? ask what presents your child would load onto their own ship.