A ship laden with sweets and gold, crewed by four-and-twenty white mice and captained by a quacking duck. Its steady swing and bright pictures make it a natural for reading aloud to the very young.
From Mother Goose / Nursery Rhymes (traditional). See the whole collection.
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!"
Public domain. Text from The Real Mother Goose (Blanche Fisher Wright, 1916), via Project Gutenberg. View the source edition