Where Go the Boats? Lyrics
A child sets little boats on a dark brown river and wonders where they will end up, then answers the question with a hope: far down the river, other children will find them. Stevenson wrote it in four verses of four lines.
Where Go the Boats?
Dark brown is the river,
Golden is the sand.
It flows along for ever,
With trees on either hand.
Green leaves a-floating,
Castles of the foam,
Boats of mine a-boating -
Where will all come home?
On goes the river
And out past the mill,
Away down the valley,
Away down the hill.
Away down the river,
A hundred miles or more,
Other little children
Shall bring my boats ashore.
Printed from https://nurseryrhymes.co/where-go-the-boats/
- Type
- Poems for Children
- Written by
- Robert Louis Stevenson
- Tune
- Read slowly and smoothly, like a river moving along
- Best for ages
- 3 to 8 years
What Does Where Go the Boats? Mean?
The poem begins with a picture: the river is dark brown, the sand is golden, and trees stand on both banks. Green leaves float past, along with "castles of the foam", which means clumps of foam that look like little castles. Among them are the child's own boats, "boats of mine a-boating", and the second verse ends with the question the poem is named for: "Where will all come home?"
The last two verses answer it by following the river. It goes out past the mill, down the valley and down the hill, a hundred miles or more. Far away, "other little children shall bring my boats ashore". So the poem is both a wondering and a wish: the child lets the boats go, and pictures someone else's hands lifting them from the water.
The words are easy except for the little a- in "a-floating" and "a-boating", an old way of saying that something is going on right now. Sand and hand rhyme, as do foam and home, mill and hill, and more and ashore.
History and Origin
This poem is in Stevenson's 1885 collection of children's verse. He came from a Scottish family of lighthouse engineers, and boats and the sea come up again in other poems of the book.
Learning Activities
- Paper boats: fold a boat from a square of paper and float it in a washing-up bowl or a shallow puddle, with a grown-up close by.
- Where to? ask each child to say where their boat will land and who will find it, then compare that with the poem's answer.
- Draw the river: paint it dark brown with golden sand, then add the mill and the hill from the third verse.
- Follow the water: on a rainy day, watch where water runs along the gutter and talk about where it goes next.