My Ship and I Lyrics
A child is the captain of a tidy little ship on a pond, and the ship only turns round and round. The child makes a plan: shrink to the size of the dolly at the helm, bring the dolly to life, and sail off together. This page gives the first two verses of Robert Louis Stevenson's poem.
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.
Printed from https://nurseryrhymes.co/my-ship-and-i/
- Type
- Poems for Children
- Written by
- Robert Louis Stevenson
- Tune
- Lilting, like a boat on small waves, with the 'divie-divie-dive' lines sung with a bounce
- Best for ages
- 4 to 9 years
Hand Motions and Actions
| When you sing | Do this |
|---|---|
| O it's I that am the captain | Stand tall with a hand on your chest and the other hand shading your eyes. |
| my ship it keeps a-turning all around | Turn slowly on the spot with your arms out wide. |
| a divie-divie-dive | Dip your hand up and down in the air like a boat going over small waves. |
What Does My Ship and I Mean?
The poem is a daydream. A ship floats on a pond, but it is a toy, small enough to have a dolly at the helm. The helm is the wheel or handle that steers a boat, and the dolly stands where a steersman would. The ship "keeps a-turning all around and all about", which is what a toy boat does when nobody can steer it, and the child wants to know the "secret" of sending it straight "sailing on beyond".
The child's answer is to wait until older and, in the meantime, to imagine. The second verse is the plan: the child will "grow as little as the dolly" and make the dolly "come alive", and the two will sail off on the water, "when the jolly breezes blow". A divie-divie-dive is a made-up sound for a boat bobbing up and down over the waves. The old a- in a-turning and a-sailing means in the middle of doing it.
The speaker is simply "I", with nothing to show whether the child is a boy or a girl. A third verse about reaching an island is left out of this page, because its last line is about firing a toy cannon.
History and Origin
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 to 1894) was a Scottish writer. A Child's Garden of Verses, published in 1885, is a book of short poems told from a child's point of view, often about play. Many of them, like this one, turn a small thing near at hand, a pond or a bed or a garden, into a place for an adventure.
The poem has three verses in the book, and this page uses the first two. They stand on their own: the first sets the scene and the second makes the plan.
Learning Activities
- Sail a boat: float a paper boat or a toy boat in a bowl or a bath, and watch whether it goes straight or turns round.
- Captain's orders: take turns being captain and saying one thing the ship does, for example 'turning' or 'sailing'.
- Small as the dolly: ask each child where they would go if they were as small as a toy, and draw it.
- Rhyme spotting: in the first verse, find the two rhyming pairs: pond and beyond, about and out.