Bliss Carman (1861-1929)
The Ships of Yule
1When I was just a little boy,
2Before I went to school,
3I had a fleet of forty sail
4I called the Ships of Yule;
5Of every rig, from rakish brig
7To little Fundy fishing boats
8With gunwales painted green.
9They used to go on trading trips
10Around the world for me,
11For though I had to stay on shore
12My heart was on the sea.
13They stopped at every port to call
14From Babylon to Rome,
15To load with all the lovely things
16We never had at home;
17With elephants and ivory
18Bought from the King of Tyre,
19And shells and silks and sandal-wood
20That sailor men admire;
21With figs and dates from Samarcand,
22And squatty ginger-jars,
23And scented silver amulets
24From Indian bazaars;
25With sugar-cane from Port of Spain,
26And monkeys from Ceylon,
27And paper lanterns from Pekin
28With painted dragons on;
29With cocoanuts from Zanzibar,
30And pines from Singapore;
31And when they had unloaded these
32They could go back for more.
33And even after I was big
34And had to go to school,
35My mind was often far away
36Aboard the Ships of Yule.
Notes
6] barkentine: three-masted sailing ship.
7] Fundy: the Bay of Fundy off Nova Scotia, whose tides are among the highest in the world.
8] gunwales: upper edge of the boats' side.
18] Tyre: former kingdom on the site of the city in Lebanon.
21] Samarcand: city in former eastern Soviet Union.
25] Port of Spain: city in Trinidad and Tobago.
27] Pekin: Beijing, China.
Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: Bliss Carman, Echoes from Vagabondia, 2nd edn. (Boston: Small, Maynard, 1913), pp. 8-9. PS 8455 A7E33 Robarts Library.
First publication date:
1912
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 1998.
Recent editing: 4:2002/1/26
Composition date:
1909
Rhyme: abcb
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